Week 3, 2010

Luna Park

On Monday me, Matthias, Annina and Dunja went to Luna Park as normal guests. Me, Matthias and Dunja get free wristbands since we work there. Annina got a free wristband from a friend of us. He has worked in the park longer than us and can give a free wristband to friends, something we cant do since we are only summer casuals. We got there around 4pm and had 5 hours to have fun before the park closed. The park is right next to the ocean and there is a great view of the sunset, so at 8pm when the sun was going down we were watching it! It was so beautiful. Even with 5 hours we only managed to do most of the rides once and to eat dinner. But it was a wonderful afternoon!

Dalrymple-Hay Nature Reserve

Wednesday morning me and Annina went for breakfast to the Dalrymple-Hay Nature Reserve. It is a patch of old blue gum forest in the middle of the North Sydney population. All around are normal housing that you will find in any Sydney suburb, but as soon as you got into the reserve it felt like being in the middle of a big old forest. The whole reserve took only around 15-20 minutes to walk trough so it was not very big. Before entering we had breakfast on benches made from large tree trunks. She had baked bagels and we had Philadelphia and peanut butter and jam on top! We saw the biggest ant I have ever seen! It must have been 2.5 cm long and you could see the fangs. Also an enormous insect was sitting on my leg. I took a photo while it was crawling upwards. :P

Avatar 3D IMAX (Again!)

On Thursday I went to see Avatar again! This time I went with Matthias, Kristin and Annina. After my first viewing I convinced them that they also had to see it. However the IMAX has been sold out for over a month and it was also hard to make it fit with everybody's timetable. As a bonus we got tickets for half price because there is an universal Australian movie voucher that can be bought on eBay for 15 dollars and this can also be used in the IMAX! As far as I understood from what they told me after the movie, they all loved it and were impressed by the technical level. As for me, it was just as good the second time around!

Days Like This!

Just as in Norway, with summer comes the festival season and Australia is no different. There are several music festivals to choose from, from one day events too weekly ones. The problem is that they are fairly expensive. However after looking on eBay I found some tickets for the "Days Like This!" festival that were cheaper than normal. "Days Like This!" is a one day event from 12:00 to 22:00. Me and Annina both wanted to go because she wanted to see one of her favorite bands called "The Cat Empire" and I wanted to see "Method Man and Redman". In addition there was a ton of other bands that are lesser known that we could explore.

Sadly I had to work the same day, so I could not go to the beginning of the festival. Luckily the artists I wanted to see and hear were playing in the end anyways so it was not a big problem. When I got there Annina had already been there a while and she showed me around the different stages. We listened to some of the different bands, DJ's and solo artists while waiting for the main events. From everything I heard so far I liked a hip hop group called "Ugly Duckling" the most.

At 19:10 "The Cat Empire" entered the main stage. I am a little bit familiar with them from before because Annina had played it for me in advance and I also copied it from her iPod and listened to it. They are very interesting to listen too because the style of music changes from song to song and I was looking forward to seeing  if they were good live as well. After they were finished I was very happy with what I had seen and heard. They played a great selection of songs and what was even more impressive was that it seemed like every member of the band knew how to play at least 3-4 different instruments. They even switched main singers! All in all it was a great concert and a band I think will become very big in the future.

After "The Cat Empire" it was time for the main event, which was "Method Man and Redman". My only connection to them from before is from the movie How High and listening to a few of their songs. I was wondering what kind of show it would be and if it would be really good, really bad or somewhere in between. My experience was very unique. Their style is interesting, from the clothes to the music and the talking in between. One thing was certain, they knew how to get the crowd to respond. It was a fair mix between tracks I had never heard about and well known songs, tributes to dead rappers and random weed jokes. All in all a very different experience, but not negative in any way.

Here are some more photos :)

New Years Eve!

Sydney is supposed to be one of the best places to celebrate new years eve. People have told me this since the first day I landed in Australia. It was therefore an easy choice where I wanted to celebrate. However with over 1.5 million people all wanting the best spots to see the harbor bridge fireworks the question was where we should go.

The best spots had people camping out from the night before putting up tents and then sitting and waiting the whole day. Then the next best places had queues from 7-8 in the morning. We ended up going to a place called Bulls Head Reserve. It was a little bit away from the bridge, but still had a great view and a plus was that you could bring your own alcohol. We went there around 3 pm and had a picnic and drinks while waiting. There was a lot of people gathered and more where coming the whole time. It was also clear that the place we choose was the teenage party place, but that didn't bother us as they were all friendly, and we were not that much older than them.

At 9 pm was the first fireworks and everybody gathered at the viewing spots to get a good look. It was a good show, then at 12 was the "real" fireworks. It was magnificent. The fireworks lasted for 12 minutes and was synchronized to music if you had a radio turned on the right station. In addition they had all different kinds of effects on the harbor bridge, including lights and special fireworks and a big ball changing colors. It is hard to describe. I think it was the best fireworks I have seen. I was surprised that there was no countdown, but after the fireworks everyone was saying happy new year to each other.

At this point everyone was getting pretty drunk and it was a bit of a challenge to get back across the bridge to the apartment. I think the trip took about 2-2.5 hours. It felt good to get back after a long day, but it was worth every second of it! Now I can brag that I celebrated new years eve in Sydney! :P

Christmas

23. December

I had to work at Luna Park this day so I did not do anything special.

24. December

Our plan was to go to the beach in the day, but the weather was gray and cold. In stead we went to the park and relaxed. My mother called me and that was nice! Thanks mom! I have to admit I did not have much Christmas feeling even though we had a Christmas tree and everything. But it was very sweet when we opened our packages from each other. Our polish flatmate is a great cook and had made some wonderful food for us. And me, Matthias and Kristin made potato salad for everyone. We had no recipe and I was surprised at how good it turned out to be. Our plan was to go out to a disco after dinner, but we never got that far due to feeling way to full of food plus to much beer :). It was a very different Christmas eve, but I had a good time.

25. December

Again the plan was to go to the beach, but the weather was still shit so I was just chilling in the apartment. In the evening we went out to a restaurant to eat dinner. It was very nice to do something a little bit special. The plan was to go out since we never got that far the day before, but apparently nothing can be open on the 25th in Australia. We had to go disappointed back home.

The rest of Christmas was pretty much normal. I had to work the 26th and 27th, but I went out and partied with my friends and had a good time. Sadly the weather has been like crap from Christmas eve until now so, there hasn't been a lot of beach time :P As promised I have included a photo of me in my working uniform.