6/1/2012 - Back in Melbourne, Temporarily

2012 is coming on quite swimmingly so far for me, but first I'll tell you all about New Year's Eve in Sydney. We spent the day chilling out and getting our picnic dinner ready, then left at around 7pm for the Observatory. Parking at Redfern we got the train the last couple of stops, which ended up being a really good idea. Anyhow, I gained my 'traveller's badge' by spotting the right platform, but we missed the train. It didn't matter since they were going to the city every few minutes and by missing the train we got to see the hilarious site of a drunk guy accidentally sliding down the middle of the escalators, but of course they had those bumps that are meant to stop people sliding down. Ouch. A train ride later, in which I saw the obnoxious couple from the aquarium (seriously, it's a big city, I was so surprised to see them again!) and we got off into the millions of people heading to various vantage points around Circular Quay and Darling Harbour. The walk to the Observatory was only around 10 minutes, and on the way I snapped this picture of some inadvertently philosophical sky writing.

That's deep, man. 

Once we got up to the Observatory, we staked our claim to a piece of grass and set up our picnic. It was a lovely spot, and because it was 8pm it was a sort of twilight. Don't get me wrong, I would have coped just fine in the crowds but there's no question as to where the better location was. The fact that only members of the Powerhouse Museum could get tickets to the Observatory at NYE and then that those tickets were around $80 made it a nice number of people, not too many not too little. We had our lovely picnic of chicken salad with crusty bread rolls and settled ourselves in for the long haul.

At 9pm, the kids fireworks started and Dan and David showed me a little spot between the hedgerows that no one else seemed to know about where the view was great!

 After the 9pm show, quite a few of the families left and we mosied around to get our free tea/coffee. The next three hours were a little boring, but I amused myself by hanging out with David and playing solitaire on Lyn's iPad. Next thing, it's quarter to midnight and we headed over to our spot. There was a ball on top of the Observatory that was rising in the last few minutes until midnight, as opposed to the ball in New York dropping. I suppose it makes sense, we are on the other side of the world after all, so opposites make sense. The fireworks themselves were amazing. I didn't take any pictures but there is a video of pretty much the whole thing that I took. There were fireworks everywhere, up and down the river, off the bridge, from the tops of office blocks behind us. Sometimes it was difficult to know where to look!

The really difficult bit was getting back to the car. I'd expected the trains and buses to be very busy, but not so busy that we couldn't get on them. We actually ended up walking the majority of the way to Redfern and got back to the car at around 2.15am. By the time we got back to Milperra, I was so tired and very aware of the fact that I had to be up at 5am to go catch my plane back to Melbourne. I did manage to get 2 hours sleep but 5am came around way too fast and when I woke up I felt like I'd been asleep for 2 minutes. Surprisingly, I didn't feel too bad and Lyn drove me to the train station to get the Airport line. After a bit of a tearful goodbye, I got on the train to the airport, managing not to fall asleep! Online check-in is a miraculous thing as I would have had to have been up so much earlier there wouldn't of been much use in sleeping at all.

The flight itself was pretty painless, only being an hour long. Landing in Melbourne was fine and I was almost immediately onto the Skybus to Southern Cross station.  I then had a half an hour wait for a train to Newport, no direct Williamstown trains that time of the morning, so I had to change at Newport then walk from the Williamstown North station back to the house. For those who don't know, I'm back nannying for Eliza and Ash again for a week! Originally it was meant to be for two weeks, but after getting on so well with Lyn I thought it would be nice to go back and spend more time with them, since they are my family and it could be a good while before we see each other again.

It took a good portion of the 3rd however to get Virgin Australia to change my flights etc. Firstly, they have a $60 cancellation fee, $60!! Ridiculous since you get refunded in credit so can only spend it with them anyhow, I'm half understand if they were losing business through it. Secondly, apart from the last guy I spoke to, their call centre is useless. Thirdly, you can't get the cheap online rates with the refunded credit and have to pay the full over-the-phone price. Finally, like many airlines now, you have to pay extra to check luggage, $12 extra for 23kg, bastards. Excuse my French. Anyhow, I now fly up to Sydney on the 9th.

Spent quite a few of the last few days at the beach. Actually we've been to the beach everyday since we had a 40 degree day a couple of days ago and being in the water was really the only solution. My new bikini came and it looks okay, the only real issue being my legs which has restarted my campaign to lose some weight. I'm not going drastic but more cutting down on the carbs (I eat an unbelievable amount of pasta), doing a little calorie counting and a lot more exercise. The only negative effect has been that Stella and Jarrah have got into the habit of saying "I need to lose weight" then pointing out where. The girls are 10 and 8 and haven't got an ounce of fat on them, I hope it isn't my influence rubbing off any, trying to talk them out of being 'on a diet' at their ages. I've been really good though, turning down ice cream, having salad for dinner, cutting down to one sugar in my tea and doing half an hour of exercise a day. If you knew me in High School you'll know that me doing exercise voluntarily is a shocking occurrence, so you see this is serious.

We've also visited the ScienceWorks twice, which a museum not far from here that is quite similar to the Science Museum in London but on a lot smaller scale. It has all those experiments for kids that you want to play on but can't if you don't have a kid with you. Actually, when Nikki and I went to London last year, we went to the Science Museum and played on all the experiments even though it was just us, so there, up yours society ;) At the ScienceWorks there was a section on fitness testing. I suppose this jolted me back to reality as well because the kids got their 'score cards' and filled them in on the way around and then got a certificate at the end based on their results. I didn't even try to do it, it would've been disastrous, but the little goes I did have on a few things were traumatic. The only thing I was any good at was the netball part and even that was mediocre. The day in itself was good though, it's a good little Museum really with plenty to keep the kids amused for hours, including an old pumping station out the back complete with big old machinery.

Anyhow, enough rabbiting on about weight and onto more interesting things. I have started a list. No shocks there though, huh? I always have some kind of list on the go. I mean, my to-do list right now includes dying my hair and sorting out my Hong Kong accommodation, but this is a new list. It's a list of the top-100 books published from 1923 - 2011, and I aim to read them all. If you're wondering why it's 1923 onwards, it's because the list was published in TIME Magazine and it's books published since the first issue of TIME. Not only am I going to read them, but I'm going to write short reviews on this here blog. The idea mainly came to me because when I'm home in seven weeks, I'm not going to have anything to write about, life in good old GY isn't too interesting y'see. So this will keep the blog ticking over nicely and also hopefully expand my literary horizons. The list is sorted alphabetically, so I'm just going to pick them at random. The next book I read will be To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee since I bought it in Williamstown Books today, before I'd even thought of doing the list. I was actually looking for Animal Farm by George Orwell since I enjoyed Coming Up For Air so much and of course 1984. As it happens, 1984 is the only book on the TIME Top 100 that I have already read, so I shall review that first, in a separate post.

Today has been another hot day, so although we ventured to the park we didn't stay long. I made a nutella cake for Ash's birthday and was very proud of my own willpower when I only had a slither. Had a lush bath tonight; candles, essential oil, steaming hot water - the lot! Nice and relaxing before watching the Inbetweeners Movie in bed. Lovely.