The Sunday before Christmas I headed down to Melbourne to spend the holiday with some old family friends. It was only about an hour flight so managed to get there quickly! They have a daughter who's about 4 and a half months younger than me so it was really fun spending time with them. Before Christmas day we saw a beautiful projection of Santa's workshop on Melbourne Town Hall, hung out with some of Sian (the daughter)'s friends, and spend Christmas Eve watching the sunset on the beach (a 10 minute walk from their house). Christmas day was really weird because it was 32 degrees and sunny... nothing like the -20 degree temperatures and snow at home. We woke up in the morning and opened presents (they had filled a stocking for me which was so nice of them, and my parents sent me gifts from home too - I opened them all while on Skype with my family at home) and then had a huge Christmas dinner with the Mom's family complete with a huge turkey and a huge ham. After being stuffed full of food me and Sian went for an hour walk along the beach which was the perfect way to end the day. For the rest of the time I was there (until the 28th) we just kinda hung out and did random stuff - some shopping, some beaching, and some visiting of other family friends in Melbourne. It was a very successful trip and I plan to go back and visit them again before I head back to Canada in June!
I got home late on the 28th and went straight to bed. I had asked Chris if he wanted to have a little Christmas celebration of our own on the 29th so during the day I went down to the mall and got a whole bunch of Christmas decorations and enough gifts to fill a stocking for him (he didn't get one on Christmas so I felt bad!). I then made him stay in his room with the door shut while I decorated the house including bringing a "festive bush" in to act as a makeshift tree. I think he was really surprised! We did gifts and then had delicious tacos for dinner followed by watching "A Christmas Story." It was a very nice little Christmassy day.
The next few days were a bit uneventful as we geared up for New Year's Eve. Sydney has the biggest showing of people for New Year's - usually about 1.6 million people show up to see the midnight fireworks. I had read that if you wanted to get a good spot you had to get there early so we headed out of the house at about 12 complete with a cooler full of food and drinks. We wanted to try to get a spot at Mrs Macquarie's Point which is opposite the Opera House and Harbour Bridge with a pretty good view of both - if you don't have a tree in front of you. As we were walking towards it we saw a huge mass of people in a makeshift line on a big field and promptly asked someone what is was for to be told that it was the line waiting to get through security to get where we wanted to be. So we joined the end of the line and was told it would be about 3-4 hours to get in. We were a bit nervous that we wouldn't get a good spot! The field was chaos to say the least... The line was supposed to be a snaking line across the field but at one point everyone started running to the front (I have no idea why) and there weren't enough security guards so it took them a while to get some order back in place and the line going again. I'm not really sure why there wasn't any barriers to show where the line should go but they obviously hadn't organized that in time. We ended up further ahead than we were before though so I wasn't complaining! We finally got through security at about 4 pm and speed walked down to where the views of the bridge were. It was packed to say the least but we managed to find a little spot where we had a clear view of the opera house but most of the bridge was covered by a tree. As the night got later we managed to squish over a bit so we had a bit more of the bridge and finally close to midnight when everyone stood up to watch the fireworks I managed to squish in enough to get the whole bridge. We counted down to midnight and the view of the fireworks was spectacular (you can watch my video of it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9oloCBOeC4). Once the fireworks were over we headed out of the park and met up with some friends in the city for a few drinks followed by getting home very late and sleeping in late the next day (yesterday).
Yesterday (New Year's Day) I slept in until about 1 as I hadn't gone to bed until 5:30 am... and then went to the Randwick Royal Racecourse with some friends to watch the horse races. I only managed to get there in time to see 2 races but I bet on the last one and my horse won! I came out about $3.40 richer which I was impressed with for my first time.
I'm back at work today and kind of happy to be back to the regular routine. It'll change again next week though when I leave on Wednesday for a 2 week tour around New Zealand. I'm back on January 24th just in time for Australia Day on the 26th. Should be a good tour - I'm really excited!
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