Blog Post #4: Life in Sydney
The past few months we haven’t gone away much. Instead, we have been focusing on exploring the city. This blog post will mostly be about what we’ve been up to while staying in Sydney.
We went to Vivid three times while it was on. Vivid is a light show that takes place around the city, where light displays are beamed onto buildings. I went to Martin Place with my friend Tusi and ate glow-in-the-dark donuts (the icing glowed under black light). Unfortunately, these were more instagram worthy than tasty! Drew and I went early one night to Circular Quay to watch the display, and we especially enjoyed the display on the Opera House. We also took in the Botanic Gardens; given the line to get in, we felt the display was underwhelming.
We also have gone to a number of different theatre events at the Opera House. We saw Bennelong, which was put on by Bangarra, an Aboriginal contemporary dance company. It was excellent, as was the accompanying music. We also saw Hot Brown Honey, and a clarinet concert. All of the events were at smaller venues in the Opera House; hopefully sometime soon we can go to a main stage event.
The one day trip we made was to the Blue Mountains. We went with some friends to take in the Winter Magic Festival, where there’s a parade and a market amongst other things. We took the train, which takes about one and a half hours per way, and spent the day there before coming home.
We have continued our cooking adventures with our Thermomix. We made our first ever batch of pierogies. It only took us about three hours to make a batch, and they turned out great. The filling was definitely better than Chemmo Pierogies; the dough was not quite as good. I also made a batch of Nanimo Bars using the Thermomix for a party hosted by our American-Australian friends from church. Both Drew and I have made a number of different breads: I made cheese and spinach scrolls and focaccia, while Drew made apple raisin custard scrolls.
We had our first house guest since moving here, Gurbeer, one of the pain fellows. She is doing her fellowship in Tasmania. She came up for a conference, which Drew also went to, and it was nice to have her stay with us, as it gave us a chance to visit.
We have added some more furniture to our house: we bought a nice indoor/outdoor gate-leg table from Ikea. We keep it inside, but when it’s a nice day we take it outside to eat. It, importantly, allows us to have people over for dinner. The current set up was quite awkward, with only two bar stools.
Drew and I both have exciting news on the job front. Drew will be at Royal North Shore Hospital for his second year of fellowship, which is a world-renowned facility for chronic pain. My contract was to end at the end of August, as the program I’m working for is winding down. However, my contract has been extended by a different area of Transport; until the end of December I will be working at the Transport Shared Services in Burwood. Unfortunately, I will have to commute by train, instead of biking. I am making good use of the commute by writing this blog and working on other things.
One unfortunate event that occurred recently was Drew falling off his bike en route to work. He dislocated his shoulder, and cracked the humerus. In true Drew style he relocated his shoulder, hopped back on his bike and rode to work, where he was able to go to the emergency department. So, Drew is sporting a sling now, and is working on some physio. Thankfully, Drew’s fall wasn’t worse, and also thankfully, he has been cleared to dive in Queensland in September!
Our next adventure is a proper one: we’re off to Queensland for two weeks. We are flying to Brisbane, where Drew will write an exam. Then we’re headed to the Gold Coast to relax for two days, before heading back to Brisbane for the train up to Cairns. Once there we’re doing a bunch of tours and a three day live-aboard (where you live on the ship and dive from it) on the Great Barrier Reef. Then we’re going to road trip it back to Brisbane. We’re really excited for it! After our trip I’ll do a whole post just on it.
