A Few Snaps...

G'day peeps,

After a busy week at uni trying to get ready for my meeting with my advisor, complete with early starts and late nights, I was very happy that the weekend came. Not only would this mean that I could have a lie in (turns out this did not happen - it seems my body clock is changing and wants me to wake at 7am - DISLIKE), it meant that I could go out and about and play with my new camera :)

Yesterday I went for my first Aussie BBQ, so my photo taking was limited to today. I first planned on completing another section of the coastal walk that I have been doing the past few weeks. However, having done the closest sections now, I have to travel quite far to actually get to the other areas, which involves buses and/or trains. Soooo, instead I decided to head downtown and just wander around Circular Quay (where the Bridge and Opera House are), the Botanical Gardens, and also venture across to the Northern Suburbs by crossing the bridge. It was a very pleasant stroll, nothing crazy, just wandering around for 3 or 4 hours, taking pictures. I took 144 pictures in total, of which, about 3 are probably good....I think I will be needing that book Mum! To be fair though, this was the first time I have been out and about with the camera, and things can only get better. So here are a few of the reasonable pictures. Many more to come I am sure!

DSLR!

G'day!

After not being able to take good pictures of the dolphins yesterday due to my crappy zoom, I went off to look at DSLRs today. I did a bit of research a few weeks ago so knew roughly what I was looking for, but just wanted to check them out in person, with no real intention of buying one. Well that didn't go quite to plan, and I ended up buying one...another WHOOPS! I did manage to haggle and get $150 off an already discounted price, so really I had no choice. So you can look forward to seeing some (hopefully) wonderful pictures very soon...I just need to go somewhere where I can take said wonderful pictures.

I should also mention, on Friday, I went out for Thai food! It was someones leaving do and I didn't really have much choice where to eat, but still, another new food experience. Definitely evolving!

Water, Water, Everywhere!

G'day.

So as has become custom for the past few weekends, I surprisingly went for another walk this weekend. Having done a small part of the Sydney coastal walk many a time, I decided it was time to go further afield with the coastal walk, going north, beyond Bondi, to a place called Watsons Bay, part of which is part of the Sydney Harbour National Park which I went to the other week. Just before I left, my housemate told me that she saw some whales last yesterday at Maroubra (where I went last week but didn't see any). So before I left, I was determined to find some whales, I simply had to! Well....within say 45 minutes of my walk, what did I see....?? Whales....NO! But I did see about 10 dolphins swimming by. At first glance I thought it was a surfer, and then when I looked again, I realised it was a dolphin. I was very excited and soon a small crowd appeared around me. I tried to take some pictures, but as the zoom is pretty shite on my camera (if only I already bought my DLSR), I didn't really get a good picture. But still, I SAW SOME WILD DOLPHINS, WOOOOO! After hoping that this was a good omen for seeing whales, I was wrong; no whale sightings for me :(

The rest of the walk was pretty ace though; it took me about 4 hours to reach my destination but it was worth it. No pesky kids playing dangerously this time, perhaps this was because the waves were massive today (apparently they were up to 15m in Tassy!). I did, however, get annoyed by runners. This one woman was jogging, and overtook me. We reached some stairs, and she decided to walk exceedingly slow in front of me. I overtook her, reached the top of the stairs, and 30 seconds later, she started jogging again, overtook me, reached some stairs and basically stopped again! God people are annoying, stopping suddenly right in front of me, stopping in inconvenient places on narrow paths. RETARDS! Who knows what tomorrow will bring.

Walking Away My Woes

Hola!

This week has been a bit poopy, mainly because of my inability to work Matlab, thus causing considerable hold-ups with the PhD. Joy! I realise that this is a pretty lame problem but it is pissing me off, and me being me, I like to whinge about it (to you guys, obviously not to the advisor). In order to just chill and try not to worry about Matlab, I decided to do a lot of walking this weekend. I didn't go anywhere exciting, just the coastal walk to Maroubra on Saturday, and then to Bondi (and beyond) today, both I which I have a done a few times now.

The walk to Maroubra (Saturday) was very pleasant. There wasn't a cloud in the sky so that immediately lifted my spirits (especially since I had a hardcore clean of my room that morning, always depressing). Last time I did this walk, I managed to get a bit lost and you may recall that I ended up scrambling across rocks/rock-pools, a near death experience. Well this time, I managed to find the correct route, avoiding the near-death section. On the way, I some saw some young kids (probably 13/14), playing on a rocky section - the waves were pretty big and it was very dangerous, I just wanted to go and lecture them. I reached my target, and sat at the beach for about an hour, reading my book, before heading back. I had hoped for it to be sunset on the way back, but I clearly walk too fast and sunset wasn't for another hour. This obviously foiled my plans to take some nice pictures, so I headed back home.

Today, the festival of the wind was being held at Bondi Beach; this is basically just a kite flying festival so I thought I would go and check it out. I managed to reach Bondi from home in just over an hour which I was pretty impressed with, it is about 7km after all. The actual "festival" was pretty shite, there weren't a lot of kites there so I was a little disappointed. I didn't waste my walk, and sat soaking up the sun and enjoying the awesome clouds :) I then walked to the shopping centre, and back home (another 6km or so). So there you have it, that was my weekend.

GOOOOO SWANS!

Bonjour!

Yesterday I went and watched some Aussie Rules (Australian football - similar to Gaelic football apparently) at Sydney Olympic Park. Having never seen it before, I was very excited (yes, I was excited about sport), and the fact that it was a qualifying game (a quarter final I think), made it even more exciting. The match was between Sydney Swans and Carlton, a team from Victoria. Since the game was in Sydney, the support for the Swans was huge - basically everyone in the stadium was wearing red and white (the Swans colours), so I felt a bit out of place. Once the game started, however, I was well into it and fitted right it! I was cheering and generally going crazy - it was awesome! I don't think I have ever been so into a sport before. The actual game of Aussie Rules is strange but very amusing; lots of punching and violence in general!

The swans were winning until half time, and then Carlton game back in the 3rd quarter and overtook the Swans - at this point I was not happy as it seemed like we (yes, we!) were going to lose. But.......just toward the end of the final quarter, the swans came back and scored another goal - my goodness, I, along with the entire stadium, went absolutely mental! Then two minutes later, we scored again and then game over! WE WON! The final score was 99 to 94 so the Swans won their way to the semi final. You can see the highlights here. All in all, I had a bloody fantastic time and I will definitely go back and watch it again, maybe even on the TV! Geez Australia is changing me....watching sport, trying sushi, whatever next...