The first diary entry as a 28 year old! Had a very good birthday. Saturday about 12 of us met for drinks, dinner and more drinks, which was really nice. Two other friends had their birthdays this week as well and they celebrated theirs on Sunday, but made it seem a bit like mine as well, so that was the second day I felt like a birthday girl. Yesterday was my real birthday, and as I'd been hinting a fair bit about it, I had loads of emails this morning, which made me very happy and a bit homesick. I've come to the point that I really start missing my friends, no matter how great the friends I made here are. So all the attention was great!
Last night went to Paul and Carla's for pizza. They bought me a beautiful card and a t-shirt, just so sweet!
Not much else is happening really. We're making X-mas plans but apart from that it's just normal daily routine for me at the moment. Early train to work, tall skim latte at the station and off to the 14th floor to start another action packed day, as the guy from the mailroom calls it.
Finished another week of working. Spent this night watching Moulin Rouge and enjoying a few glasses of wine. Still feel a bit homesick. Even though I've been away for three months twice before, I never felt homesick before. Maybe it's the fact that I staid for three months in one place, and have another six months of travelling ahead of me. Falling in love shortly before coming over was not the smartest thing to do I guess. And my friends are just pretty unique! Don't know. It's not a bad thing, really, as this means I won't mind going home when time comes.
Today some colleagues and I went for lunch at a beautiful Japanese place. Feel lucky having these colleagues, they make me feel welcome and part of the team. Had a X-mas card from one of them, which was so sweet! Had to tell my manager today that I won't be working on new years eve (or not till 7 pm that is). Didn't go down too well, but I suppose she understands. Didn't come to the bloody other side of the world to do overtime, let alone on NYE.
Tomorrow morning we'll meet very early to go to Hunter Valley. Great, another weekend out of the city! We rented a one-bedroom cabin between the five of us and it's gonna be hot this weekend. A 4WD will collect us at the cabin for a private tour of some wineries and a cheese making place. After all the winetasting, tomorrow night it won't be a pretty smelly in our room! Sunday will be cricket on the beach or something.
Can't believe it's christmas tomorrow! It so doesn't feel like it... Feel cheated by the weather, as it's too warm to feel like home and way too cold and grey for ozzie in this time of the year.
Anyway....the Hunter weekend was great! We met our tourguide Jenny at 11 am and had our first wine five minutes later. Jenny was lovely, very enthousiastic and 'gezellig'. We visited seven boutique wineries, small wineries that sell from the cellar doors and not through 'normal' retail channels. Tried many chardonnay's (not a big fan of the unwooded one), semillons, shiraz's and verdelho's. I bought a few nice bottles of whites and some port. Yummie!
Sunday started well, with a cooked breakfast, thanks to Paul. Afterwards we drove to Palm Beach, which was just great. It was still very hot, so played with the (strong!!!) waves for a while. Played football and cricket when it had cooled down a bit. In the middle of an over (=part of cricket game) it started pouring down with rain and we saw lightning. Bugger! Ran to the car and drove to Manly for a few Carltons and games of pool. Another fab weekend!
So, survived chrissy. Christmas Eve was fun. We were too late for tea at a nice place so we decided on cheap and cheerful (Thai). After dinner we went to the World Bar for some teapots (and no, there's no tea in these teapots). On x-mas day, the weather wasn't as bad we were told it would be, and it didn't rain so me was happy! X-mas lunch was cooked ham, champs, salads and some more finger food. We decided to go to Coogee. We were entertained by a group of boys playing cricket and some naked pommie bloke (actually, I don't know his nationality, but naked men in public tend to be English) who ran into the sea and back to the beach. It was Paul's lucky day, as he was surrounded by four beautiful women ;-) Tea was Japanese take away, quite
Our plan for Boxing Day was to lounge by my pool and have dinner afterwards. No chance, it was pissing down all day... Went to see the Sydney-Hobart race and got soaked without having seen a single boat. Hadn't seen the city being so grey and hazy before. Dutch weather... Dinner was nice though, Paul, Carla and Phil came over for a Mexican meal. We drank some of the wines we got in the hunter and played cards. Had to be back at work on Friday, so didn't have a late one.
