Out With The Old

Having arrived at my friends very Christmassy home on Christmas eve I was warmly welcomed and then fed.  I took a few minutes to settle in to my room before spending the rest of the evening continuing to catch up with my friend and watching the obligatory (in my family anyway) Christmas movie which this year Polar Express. Before long though it was time for bed and we were being told that Santa wouldn’t come until we were all safely tucked up for the night and so my rather long day ended rather well.

I was woken up early the next morning and ordered downstairs so we could all open our presents. Having requested that the folks back home restrain themselves I was slightly concerned to discover that out of everyone I seemed to have the most gifts to open! Fortunately there were many edible gifts amongst them which could be disposed of over the next week or so with a little help from my friends. Though I had many little things it didn’t take me long to work my way through my ‘haul’ nor did it take the others long to catch up. This of course left the eternal grown-up Christmas day problem of what to do next now all the presents had been opened, the answer was to eat. Since I have been well and truly off my diet for a good few weeks now I was very happy with this arrangement and even indulged in a wee morning glass of champagne. I took as many photos as I could during the day and uploaded them so my family could see I was having a good time without them. I even managed to have a quick skype call with my mother and saw my Christmas card from my brother which he opened and showed to me over during the call, even pixilated it was a very nice card.

 On boxing day I gate crashed my friends family lunch. We went to a lovely hotel in Thirroul, a town 90 minutes north of my friends home. As well as a tasty meal and enjoying meeting some of my friends family we also managed to fit in a walk along the coastal road so my recently neglected camera could get a proper work out. This was accompanied by some interesting discussions with my friend on religion, life the universe etc and reminded me of our many random conversations as we sat on the chairlift to and from work in the mountains. Lunch took up most of the day and when we left some of my friend’s family followed us home to continue the family catch-up. My friend and I decided that we had been social enough for the day and took ourselves off to watch Shrek. This was interrupted to watch the Dr Who Christmas special which I am hopeful has converted said friend into another fan for me to have geeky conversations with. After Dr Who we resumed Shrek only to be interrupted again so I could skype with my in-laws. After a lovely catch up (the signal was much better on boxing day than it had been on Christmas day) we finally finished Shrek before either of us fell asleep, just.

With Christmas over I headed in to the city to meet another friend for lunch which turned in to drinks and then dinner and included me phoning my host-friend to make sure it was ok for me to stay longer. Yes I felt a bit like a teenager but as it was a two hour train ride back from the city staying until 7:30pm in town meant I wasn’t back until 9:30pm at night. Not too late but late enough for someone playing taxi and therefore unable to drink all day. The friend I met in Sydney was one of the first people  I met in Sydney and I always enjoy catching up with him when I’m passing through. Even better a friend of his joined us and insisted that they were going to see the fireworks. Which got me thinking that if they did go I might just ask to tag along with them. However we soon got distracted by other random topics and too soon it was time for me to head back to the suburbs. Easy enough you;d think except that my train got delayed at a station half-way back and my friend ended up coming to get me thus making us rather later home than planned.

Now I could have stayed in the city but I didn’t because the next day my friend and I were off to get a manicure and pedicure kindly paid for by her parents as a Christmas present. We made a day of it by going for brunch first then heading home afterwards to get ready for a dinner with a mutual friend of our from out time working in the Snowy Mountains last year. Our mutual friend booked us a table at a Lebanese restaurant with lovely food and a belly dancer as entertainment. It was all good fun and two of the three of us even got up to have a go. Yes I felt very silly but that only made it more fun though the wine may have helped there too. Since our friend lived closer to the city we stayed with her and went to see her at her work the next day to say good bye. We also took the opportunity to do some much needed shopping. Sadly mine wasn’t the fun kind but a hunt for some necessities but my friend managed to get a rather nice pair of sandals and some funky pyjamas. Apparently the centre we were in was the second biggest in Australia but instead of impressing me that only made me want to get out faster. I’m really not a fan of shopping centres and even less so after four months in the tiny town of Broome, there were way too many people squished in there. Once home we finished the day with some baking as I attempted to make banana bread, an Aussie treat that I have become very fond of during my travels. My friend had bought some bananas and allowed them to ripen before I arrived so all I had to do was find a simple recipe and follow it. Now I don’t know if it was me or the recipe but let’s just say if I had been making banana cake then I would have felt very successful.

By the eve of New Years Eve we decided we needed a lazy day after all that activity and had a lovely day watching some of my favourite films and eating rubbish all day. It was a great lazy day which was slightly marred at the end by me managing to trip over a water pipe and skin my knee. Really you can’t take me anywhere. In my defense I was looking at the stars only to be brought to earth with an almighty bump: I am sure there is a lesson in there somewhere but I refuse to consider it. Thankfully I never travel anywhere without my amazing papaw cream so I figured I’d be right as long as I kept applying that to it. On our return I finally got a reply from my city friend who I had messaged the other day and all of a sudden I was indeed going to see the Sydney fireworks. I managed a quick call home to both mine and Josh’s parents before I was back online working out train times and figuring out what I should take and of course what to wear. Therefore on New Years Eve I was once again on my way in to the city to meet my friend as bring in the New Year Sydney style.

New Years Eve in Sydney was really something. We were a little late getting in to the city so we didn’t make it to our original planned lookout point but we made it to one opposite and with a little bold shuffling got ourselves a pretty good spot with a fabulous view of the bridge and its surroundings. We had been a little bit naughty and smuggled in some vodka to help keep us warm/occupied as we waited. Despite arriving later than most it was still only 17:30 when we arrived at our spot. We had had a few before we left my friends flat place but we were being very civilised and quiet nor were we likely to become otherwise however that didn’t stop some older ladies from reporting us to the authorities who quickly appeared to confiscate our vodka. Now I know they were technically in the right but they were loud and obnoxious and so self satisfied it was really annoying to be reported by them. Seriously they were more disruptive than anyone in surrounding out spot. They did provide some amusement during the nine pm kiddie firework by shouting at everyone to sit down. We couldn’t see any signs of disability so we can only assume that they were to lazy to stand up for the whole fifteen minutes of fireworks that, oh yeah were mostly up high in the sky anyway. After the firework then the boats lit up and paraded around the harbour, no doubt giving those on board an excellent view of all the plebs on dry ground with our cameras and giving us something different to look at for a few minutes.

Despite our vodkaless state we kept each other entertained well enough until finally it was midnight and the skyline lit up. They were bright, shiny and loud, in fact everything a girl could hope for to bring in a new year. We were in a dip so the sound of the fireworks echoed of the near by rocks and soon there was smoke all around us. Despite this we could still see the fireworks going off in the sky in front of us, beside as and behind us, not to mention the bridge fireworks which made an excellent finale even if it was less of a focus than it has been in previous years. It even looked like I managed to get a few decent shots with my camera though I wasn’t sure how good they would be once they were on the computer. Once the fireworks were all over and we were a whole fifteen minutes into 2013 it was time for a quick escape. We joined the crowds as we left the park en mass and headed to the nearest train station. Thanks to our packing up before the fireworks and our crowd dodgeing skills we were right at the front of the crowd waiting to get in to the station. This was good for getting home but a little bit scary as when the gates opened the crowd surged forward. The city was well organised though and we were soon in a more open space and making out way to the train which we caught with no bother at all and without any of us getting lost.  Once home we managed a quick new years drink before it was time to call it a night and 2012 was well and truly over, which of course meant that 2013 had begun.....