Weekend Trip to the Blue Mountains

This post is mostly going to cover our weekend in the Blue Mountains, but I'll quickly round up the rest of last week first.

On Tuesday I spent much of the day essay writing and working on some problem questions which we were to do for the Wednesday Intellectual Property class; a pretty boring day which passed without anything noteworthy happening really. In the early hours of Wednesday morning, around 5am, I awoke to the sound of the alarm in order to get up and watch the first Champions League game of the season. United beat Leverkusen 4-2 and we played really well so I went back to bed for another hour or two of sleep feeling very happy with our performance. The first class on Wednesday morning was a bit of a struggle after my late night, but a quick coffee soon sorted me out. After classes on Wednesday, Jessica and I met up with Alex and Megan, two other girls from Glasgow who are also here in Sydney on exchange this year, but they are studying at the University of New South Wales, so this was the first time I had seen them since bumping into each other in the airport in Dubai almost 2 whole months ago! We went to Nandos - which is cheaper here, but not as good, I don't think - and then to the Three Wise Monkeys pub for a few drinks before heading home. I was totally shattered and we contemplated going out but I knew I had to finish off my essay the next day before it was due on Friday, so I took the sensible decision to go home and get to bed. 

Thursday was spent writing the remainder of my essay, which took up the vast majority of my day. On Friday, I had my usual Commercial Dispute Resolution class before Alex and I went off to print hard copies of our essays and hand them into the Faculty of Law office. With the hard work out the way, it was time to look forward to the weekend - I headed home, got changed and went out to play football for a little while before returning to the flat to make dinner and pack my bag in preparation to leave on Saturday morning.

Myself, along with Jordan, the two Alex's and Jessica had agreed to meet at Central Station around 9am in order to catch the 9.18am train from Sydney to Katoomba, in the Blue Mountains. However, Alex got a bit lost on his way to meet us from his place out near Coogee and we ended up getting the later train at 9.48am - giving us some well appreciated time to go and grab a coffee and a bacon roll. At the first stop, Mel also caught the train and found our carriage to join up with us. The train ride up to the Blue Mountains was quite picturesque, once we were out past the suburban outskirts of Sydney, but it was still interesting to see some more of the city which I currently call home. The journey took around 2 hours in total and only cost us around $4 - generally, public transport seems to be fantastic value for money here. At one point over the weekend it was mentioned that it would be good to write down all the little, funny or enjoyable moments which we've experienced, since those are the bits which you always forget, so I'm going to try and include some more of those details in my blog - there were quite a few from this past weekend alone! The first of these was at a stop on the train journey, which I believe might have been Penrith, but I'm not totally sure - whilst stopped in the station we spotted a hairdressers on the street called "Hakuna Matatas" like the Lion King song, which was pretty strange. Also, one of the next buildings along the street was a reasonable looking hotel and on the outside of the front of the building there was the customary "stars" to indicate the quality of the establishment - except this place only had two and a half black stars secured to the wall - properly went to the trouble of getting half a star made! What's that all about?! Haha! 

A quick snap-shot of "Hakuna Matatas" taken from the train.

Once we arrived in Katoomba, we got off the train and walked along the main street to find our hostel; it was a little place, which truly felt like someone's house called the Flying Fox. It felt very homely in some ways and as it turned out our first impressions turned out to be absolutely accurate. After dropping our bags in the room - which was able to sleep seven, including the six of us and one unfortunate bloke who had to be the stranger in beside us - sorry mate! The first thing we did was head up to the local Coles supermarket in order to buy some food for a barbecue which planned to have that night after doing some walking in the afternoon. The highlight of the trip to the supermarket was definitely finding Irn Bru and Tunnocks Caramel Wafer biscuits in one aisle and I certainly wasn't going to pass up the chance to enjoy some Irn Bru on the other side of the globe! After taking our shopping back to the hostel, we headed out walking from Katoomba towards Echo Point, which overlooks the famous Three Sister rock formation. It didn't take us too long to get there and the views were spectacular - although it was a bit touristy, it was really close to an information centre and an ice cream shop and there were a few coach-loads of people all milling around. It didn't take away from the views but it didn't really feel like you were experiencing the mountains properly.

Photo of the Three Sisters rocks from the Echo Point viewpoint.

We had been told by the woman at the hostel that there was a really good walk which we could start from near the top of Echo Point; she described around 900 stairs which went down to into the forest, wound along the cliff-side for a while and leading to the cable car or railway back up - we thought it sounded like a good plan for the afternoon and set off on the path. We quickly realised from the state of the people who we met climbing up the stairs as we descended that this was clearly going to be a fairly rapid descent and we were not disappointed. The stairs were precarious at times and could more accurately be described as ladders at times. It didn't take us too long to reach the bottom, nobody had fallen or tripped, I managed to get some great pictures and I think we were all glad that we didn't have to face the prospect of climbing back up! The cable car or the railway sounded like much better alternatives at this stage!

No photo could do it justice unfortunately, but this is a picture taken on the stairs leading down from Echo Point.

Upon reaching the bottom, we began to walk through the forest, stopping quite frequently to take some pictures or have some water - I was quite conscious of drinking plenty and not getting dehydrated since it was a brilliant, sunny afternoon. After walking along the flat forest path for maybe an hour or so, we reached the railway to take us back to the top of the cliffs once more. At one point we stopped and met a group of guys who had ventured off the path and up to a large rock which they said gave some great views, so Alex and I climbed up and took some photos. Here's a photo of me perched on the edge of the rock, overlooking the mountains in the background. 

It turned out that the railway we were heading towards used to be used for transporting coal from the bottom of the valley to the top of the cliff-side. Furthermore, it now acts as the worlds steepest passenger railway service - well, we had to have a go on that! Forget the cable car! The incline is an incredible 52 degrees and it looks quite unsafe looking up from the bottom, as the tracks disappear into the darkness of a natural rock tunnel around half way up the cliff. Clearly there were a lot of people standing in the queue to get on the carriage who were more than a little unsure about their impending journey back to the top and questioning whether those stairs weren't so bad after all! I took a video on the train as we were on it and I think I may upload it to YouTube later - I'll post the link in a later blog post if I do upload it.

Again, this picture doesn't do the steepness of the tracks much justice, but it gives some idea of how crazy this train ride was!

After surviving the amazing train ride back to the top, we set off walking back towards the town. Before heading back to the hostel, we wanted to get some beers to enjoy with the barbecue so we stopped into a shop called Dan Walker's, which is a liquor store around the same size of a small to medium sized supermarket - it even has underground parking and a drive through! For such a small town, most residents must be raging alcoholics to keep this place in business, it was seriously unbelievable. Unfortunately whilst walking back to the hostel Jordan managed to drop one of the bottles which he'd purchased, which made a huge pop as it bounced down onto the pavement. We did the responsible thing and collected all the glass, however even on Sunday as we headed home the beer stain remained on the tarmac - Jordan certainly left his mark on Katoomba! 

We got back to the hostel and fired up the outdoor barbecue, which we used to cook burgers, sausages and corn on the cob - which were fantastic! Some of the other residents got a wood fire burning to give us some extra heat and there was even some speakers underneath a gazebo-type structure which we were able to plug our phones into and play some music. I introduced the Stone Roses to the group and it was met with mostly positive reviews, which I was very pleased about! There was also a cat wandering around whilst we were outside which I quite liked - I'm by no means a fan of cats, and much  prefer dogs - but this one was very likeable and I've no idea why. It was also hilarious watching Jordan talk to it like it was a baby, something which he was still being reminded of some time later! I really enjoyed the barbecue and we were all properly well fed, except Jessica who was a bit sick - however she swears it wasn't the food since she was chef!

After we cleaned up from dinner, we headed into the living room inside the hostel where there was a 'social time' from 6pm till 9pm - meaning no phones, laptops or any other technology. There was a brilliant wood fire blazing, some excellent music played - Arcade Fire, I seem to remember - and we sat around chatting to some other visitors from all over the world, enjoyed our beers and played cards. I learned a couple of new card games - 'Presidency' and 'Kemps' which are both ones to remember and we also had a good laugh at both Alex's having valiant attempts to play the didgeridoo. Not long before we headed to bed we cut up Mel's cake which we had brought along as a surprise since it had been her birthday during the week. A good night had by all and I was shattered. 

We arose fairly early on Sunday morning in order to try and make the most of the day. Another funny little memory, when Jordan jumped down from his bunk-bed in the morning darkness, he landed straight on top of a big bag of crisps we had bought the day before, making a huge noise and splitting the bag open - perfect start to the day! Haha! Included in the price for the hostel was a complimentary breakfast, consisting of a choice of cereal, bread, tea, coffee, juice, fruit and one resident even started making pancakes for people - although I'm sure he only set out to make a few for himself before beginning to deal with several requests from other people! We departed our room, tidied up any mess which we had made and folded the bed sheets before setting off on our walk for the day.

Sunday's planned route required us to jump back on the train and head down two stops back towards Sydney, which only took around 10 minutes, to a town called Wentworth. The plan was to go and see Wentworth Falls, descend more stairs down to the bottom of the same waterfall and then follow the National Pass cliff trail around the side of the valley, before climbing a different set of stairs back up. We suspected it may take around 3 to 4 hours and had began walking by around 10am. From the very beginning, the entire day was just encapsulated by stunning views and scenery - even more impressive than the day before, which had been fantastic itself. At one stage, we decided to take a detour along a side path which ultimately led to a dead end and forced us to return from where we had originally walked from - however it proved to be a great opportunity to see another viewpoint which probably isn't enjoyed by most walkers in the area, so I took a selfie of me with the falls in the background.  

We continued to walk around the trails until we found ourselves at the top of the falls looking down into an incredible valley below; the bottom seemed like miles away and I never did actually manage to see where it ended - quite awe inspiring standing at the top of such a place. After crossing over the top of the falls, we negotiated another set of steep stairs down to meet the bottom of the first half of the falls - Wentworth falls is like a double waterfall, which has two distinct parts, each huge in their own right. When we reached the middle point, or the bottom of the first waterfall, we sat for a while, took some photos and had lunch. 

These next photos are the same waterfall as the one seen in the photo of me above; firstly from right on top of the falls looking over the edge and secondly from below looking back up at the cascading water. 

It was amazing standing at the bottom of the falls and a really strange sensation to feel the mist from the water cooling you down in the warm sunshine. A pretty brilliant lunch spot. After leaving here, we headed around the cliff path, which took us by several more smaller waterfalls, up and down some more stairs and passed some really great photo opportunities. The path was much less worn than we had experienced the previous day and you had to be careful to watch your footing - Jordan almost fell a few times, but had some incredible luck in never actually falling; I even managed to catch him twice! Again, at the end of the path we were faced with a wall of steps which felt truly endless as our legs burned from the constant ascent up the steep cliff; reaching the top to find a bench and catch our breath was quite a relief. We soon set off again though and made our way back to the train to go back the two stops to Katoomba, in order to collect our remaining things from the hostel. After a quick change out of a sweaty t-shirt we made our way back to the train station once more and waited on our train to take us back to Sydney. It was mentioned on Sunday that it felt strange to feel like you were away from home, and it was good to be heading back to home from our weekend away - except of course Sydney isn't what we called "home" only a few months ago. It was a very strange thought when considered. 

I had an absolutely fantastic weekend and I would certainly recommend a trip to the Blue Mountains for anyone who might be considering whether it's worthwhile or not. I've walked a few mountains in Scotland and seen a lot of great scenery, but I thought the Blue Mountains were truly spectacular. I've got many, many more photos but I'll just add one more good one, although unfortunately Alex took it so he's not actually in it. I'm off to bed now, since I'm totally shattered. Night. 

Diary of my week!

I thought I might try something a little bit different for my next blog post, so I'm going to keep a daily diary for the next week or so and see if it helps to ensure I don't miss any details.

Tuesday 10th September
No classes today, so I had a long lie again. When I say I've been having a long lie, usually it's only until around 10.00am roughly, since I set my alarm for around that time and then maybe lie for a little while reading the latest news and sport headlines from during the night back home. However, today I must have still been partially asleep when I turned my alarm off, rolled over and went straight back to sleep, since I awoke again some time later to check my phone and saw that it was 11.38am. Must have needed it. I had missed out on another hour or so which I had planned to use for some more uni work so I quickly hopped out of bed, made some breakfast and had a shower.

The big news today is that the demo for the new FIFA 14 is launching today, which in previous years would usually mean that I would be rushing home from school, work, or maybe a lecture at Glasgow to get on to my Playstation and download the game. Unfortunately, I don't have a console here so I can't join in with all the other lads playing the new game, which is a bit disappointing - I know that's quite tragic but I don't really care.

After getting some of my Competition Law essay done in the early afternoon, I got changed and headed for Victoria Park to meet up with the guys from the Sydney Uni Soccer Society. It was 32 degrees here today and I was definitely feeling it during the game; our team played pretty well though and I scored a couple of nice goals too, which is always pleasing! I hope that I'm getting acclimatised to the heat so that I can continue playing throughout the summer and so far it feels alright - fingers crossed it continues! After the football I headed home and really couldn't be bothered cooking so in an attempt to come up with something quick and easy I made myself some ham and egg fried rice with some boiled carrots. Not a particularly traditional combination and not very exciting either, but I just needed some energy back in me after the football.

It's Claire's 21st birthday tomorrow - she is one of my flatmates here - so the rest of us have got together and bought some balloons and other decorations which we're going to put up in the apartment around midnight and wake her up to say happy birthday!

Wednesday 11th September
Woke up to the news this morning that the hot water is off in the whole building - they don't know why it's not working and they can't tell us how long it will be until it comes back on. Not a good start to the day, especially seeing as I have always had some kind of routine of having a shower every morning before I really go and do anything else. I was supposed to have a class at 2pm and the water didn't come back on until around 1.30pm which meant it was too late to get a shower and go to uni - unfortunately, there was no chance I was going to uni without a shower. Fortunately however, it was my only class of the day and it happened to be a stand-in lecturer since the usual lecturer had a meeting, so not much was missed. Instead of my class, I tried to spend my day as productively as possible by getting some more of my essay done for Competition; a first draft is due for peer review on the 16th of this month, so I have another few days to get it finished off. Whilst working, I played the Arctic Monkeys set from the Roundhouse at the iTunes Festival for some background music. They've really stepped it up in the past few months; headlining Glastonbury, the new album, "AM" and now the iTunes Festival set - smashing it!

Since it was Claire's birthday today, we decided we would all go out for some dinner tonight. We met in the flat around 6pm and headed up George Street before heading to a Korean restaurant near World Square - I forget the name of the place! I had never had Korean food before but had enjoyed some Thai dishes as well as Chinese and some food from the airport in Singapore which was nice, so I was sure I would find something which I liked on the menu - I'm not a fussy eater by any means. When we arrived it was decided that we would have a sort of buffet-style meal where we ordered a number of dishes and left them all in the centre of the table. I won't pretend like I know what the dishes were called or exactly what they were made with, but I do know that each of them was really nice and that I would absolutely have Korean food again!

The girls also suggested that we order some Korean wine and discussed whether one or two bottles would be best; I had no idea what the stuff was like so allowed them to decide and one bottle was deemed plenty - what a good decision it turned out to be. The bottle arrived at the table and it was no bigger than an average bottle of beer - I wondered if this was actually wine at first, before the waitress dished out a shot glass to each of us and filled them with the "wine". I smelled the little glass of clear liquid which had a scent which could only be described as something like vodka - this was not wine as I knew it. We drank them back in one go and surprisingly there was no burn, but it was quite a strong flavour and a pretty pleasant drink overall. It turned out that the stuff was 17% alcohol and I wondered why the girls had been debating whether to buy two bottles when there was only five of us around the table! We returned to the flat where Claire sliced up some birthday cake to share with us all before events were cut short by the fire alarm. Here's a picture of us all enjoying our wine!

Thursday 12th September
This morning I had another tragic effort at getting up when my alarm went off at 10am - I quickly had a read of the news and flicked through Twitter, and thought I would close my eyes again, just for 5 minutes I told myself. Stupid mistake. The next time I checked my phone it was almost 11.30am and I'd missed most of the morning which I had been planning to use in order to get some more uni work done. Anyway, I got up and went through to the kitchen to make some breakfast - made myself an omelette with some onions and tomatoes through it, which I had with some toast. Afterwards I had a shower and got dressed before I sat down to get some work done.

Around 2pm I got changed into my football stuff, stuck my boots in my bag and headed up to the Square, which is another grass playing field in the middle of campus. However, it turned out the rest of the people weren't playing today so it was a wasted trip walking all the way up there, however it did mean that I got to chill out in the sunshine with my iPod playing whilst I waited to see if anyone else would turn up. I went into Coles on the way back home to get some milk, bread and other groceries that I was needing.

When I came home I got back to writing my first essay draft for Competition Law, which is due on the 16th of September - only 4 days away now. Getting close to having it done now though and then it'll be on to the next one! Busy time at the moment! For dinner tonight I made myself some fish - last week I bought two basa fillets at the supermarket, so I covered them in flour and shallow fried them. Had the fish with some boiled carrots on the side; just a quick dinner before I got back to writing some more of my essay. I also had some apples left over which were starting to go a little bit soft, so I sliced them up, once more covered them in some flour and fried those as well. They were really tasty but they certainly didn't look very good! I'm just about to go and watch some Still Game episodes before I go to bed - I've got my Commercial Dispute Resolution class tomorrow morning at 10am so I'll need a decent sleep.

Friday 13th & Saturday 14th September
I didn't have a chance to write on Friday, so I'm going to cover Friday and Saturday in one post. I got up fairly early on Friday morning, had a shower and made some breakfast before my Commercial Dispute Resolution class. I had porridge for breakfast, which I bought last week in the supermarket - it was only around $1.70 for a fairly big bag of oats, which is pretty good! The class was another enjoyable one and I'm fairly sure it is my favourite class of this current semester. The class finished at 2pm as normal and I headed straight home to get changed, have some lunch and head back out to go and play football. I met up with the guys from the Soccer Society in Victoria Park and played there for a while before moving to St Paul's Oval to play with the other group for a while too.

Afterwards I walked home and quickly got showered and changed once more since we had plans to meet up and discuss the trip to Cairns which Jordan had suggested. I met Jordan and Jessica just outside my flat and we decided to go and get some food first of all - I hadn't had any dinner yet, having played football for a few hours in the sunshine and it was now after 6pm, so I was starving. We headed up to World Square, which is a shopping centre in the middle of the city, but it also has quite a nice food court. We ended up eating in a place which pretty much only sells burgers; they do all different kinds of burgers with various toppings and stuff - it's pretty much like Ketchup back in Glasgow which was great since I miss that place! Anyway, I had a sweet chilli chicken burger with chips and it was brilliant! They have a really cool scheme in the restaurant where when you buy a beer or a bottle of some kind, they give you the bottle top and then there are three different jars - each of which represents a different charity or initiative. The idea is that you read the little "blurb" about what each of them stand for and then pop your bottle top into the jar of your choice. Nice concept whoever came up with it.

Afterwards we met up with Alex and then Connor and went to a pub called the Three Wise Monkeys which is across the street from the Sir John Young - possibly one of the biggest dive pubs in the world and yet we have been there two or three times. The Three Wise Monkeys was a much nicer place, with big screens showing the rugby, lots of couches, live music and bars on three different floors. I bought myself a pint of Guinness which set me back a full $8.90 which was a bit of a shock, but it was well worth it so as not to have to drink a "schooner" for once! The highlight of the night was probably the strange, drunk woman in her mid-30s who approached our table in the pub asking if she could sit with us since she was, "bored of her friends." Then she told us how there was some guy there who she fancied, but he didn't like her back - Jessica suggested she should tell him how she felt and her response was that she already had. Many times. This was getting tragic; however she soon left us to return to the "boring friends" much to my delight. As usual the night escalated beyond where we had planned and we ended up leaving Star Bar and heading home shortly after 1am - another good night had by all.

This morning has been filled with another long lie after our night out, before I dragged myself out of bed, had some food and got a shower. I planned on getting some uni work done before the football was on TV later on - a 12.45pm kick off back home meaning a pleasant 9.45pm kick off here. The game was a success as United won 2-0 and we played fairly well, albeit far from our best. I only managed to get some work done before I was distracted by all the usual suspects - Facebook and Twitter mainly. After lunch I had a quick nap to recharge the batteries; didn't get much sleep the night before and sat down to watch the game. The only truly productive thing which I did this afternoon was book my flight for our trip to Cairns to take in the sights of the Great Barrier Reef. We're going from the 31st October to the 4th November, which will take in my 20th birthday and I can't think of a more brilliant place to spend it! Already really looking forward to it! The day just flew by today, don't know where the time went really. Bed time now.

Sunday 15th September
I got up sharp at 9.30am today in order to get the rest of my essay finished for Competition Law - again, it's only a first draft but I was intent on making it a good first draft so as that my work to do a finalised copy was minimal. After a few hours work, consisting of reading, writing, researching, erasing and re-writing I went and had a shower and had a break for a little while. I caught up on the latest news from back home - mainly the sport stuff, I have to admit - and was delighted to hear that both Chelsea and Man City had dropped points during the night, which really improved United's early league position relative to our rivals. Happy days. Around 12.30pm - or 3.30am back home - I had a surprise FaceTime call from Andy and Hayley who were not long back from pub golf in Linlithgow. There was no surprise that they were both a little bit worse for wear and the call was cut short when Andy's dad came downstairs from his bed to remind him of the time! Haha!

After a few more hours essay writing I stopped to have some lunch before returning to my laptop in an attempt at a final push to get it completed. At this point motivation was lost, which is always an infuriating stage of essay writing in hindsight; at least three or four hours were passed by watching Match of the Day on BBC iPlayer from last night, scrolling through Facebook and Twitter and unfortunately falling asleep for about half an hour. Must still be feeling the effects of the late night on Friday. However, after a dinner of omelette and beans - which was boring, but quick and that was key - I got the essay done. I've since been down to the shop to buy some milk for breakfast tomorrow, FaceTimed home and got this blog up to speed. Now off to watch some TV before I go to bed. Got a new episode of Breaking Bad to look forward to tomorrow after my classes are done - can't wait!

Monday 16th September
Today it has been pouring rain all day. Even in Scotland this would be considered a pretty miserable day; the rain is properly bouncing off the pavements! It wasn't too bad when I headed to my first class of the morning but it still required me to look out my waterproof jacket unfortunately. I'd gotten very used to the sunshine every day and this weather was a timely reminder of what we usually experience throughout the winter, going to uni in Glasgow.

First class of the day was Anti-Discrimination which was cut short after only one hour since we were just going over the recent exam which we'd sat. This would usually be a good thing, but since my next class wasn't for another 3 hours it just meant a long time to be sat around bored - there was no chance I was walking home in the rain for the sake of an hour or two either. Then I had my Intellectual Property class followed by Competition Law in the early evening. In the Competition class we had a guest lecturer today and at the end of the class he gave us his email address and mobile phone number in case we needed to ring him up with any questions about what he had taught us - how weird.

The walk home was miserable as my jeans were literally soaked through and when I got home I realised that my socks were wet, as well as my boxers. Minging. I got dried off and sat down to watch Breaking Bad which was INCREDIBLE! Another strong contender for the best episode of the entire show. It's undoubtedly the greatest TV show I've ever seen - no question. Afterwards I had dinner and chilled out for a while watching some tele before going to bed.

I'm not sure if I prefer writing this way, or just doing one big post covering the whole week. I'll give it some thought before my next post.

Until next time,
Jamie

One exam down and roasting tatties

About time for an update I think; I last wrote on Monday last week so I'll pick up from Tuesday. I've just had a storming dinner so hopefully I'll get this written quite quickly and I'm going to go and watch a film before I go to sleep.

Last Monday night, as many people around the world watched on in the hope that there would be some massive, last minute moves in the football transfer window, I had to be sensible and eventually retreated from my laptop to bed just after midnight. However, in a move which could only be described as obsessive, I set my alarm first for 4am and latterly for 7am in order that I could check up on the latest news before the window closed at 8am. Each time my alarm went off in the darkness, I reached out for my phone still half asleep before remembering exactly why my alarm was going off at such a stupid time in the middle of the night - needless to say, it was a pointless exercise since hardly anything happened through the night whatsoever. Bit of a let down really, but at least United signed a midfielder finally! It's been a long time coming - 6 years to be precise.

I've had a reading week, so luckily didn't ruin my body clock for a week worth of classes after my long night of news updates and enjoyed a nice long lie until almost lunch time on Tuesday. After eventually rising from my slumber, I had a flick through some of the reactions to the football news and had some breakfast. I also downloaded the new Arctic Monkeys album called "AM", which has instantly become one of my all-time favourite albums - it is seriously that good. I hope it isn't one of those albums full of songs which you get sick of though and I'm trying to avoid over-playing it in to avoid that happening. Due to my extremely long lie, Tuesday seemed to fly by and before I knew it I was making dinner and chilling out to watch some TV before going to bed once again. I hadn't done much studying so knew that the rest of the week would be busy.

On Wednesday I got up around 10am in an attempt to return some kind of routine to my sleeping pattern and began studying for my Anti-Discrimination Law exam, after some breakfast and a shower. This is the first year at uni during which I've used my laptop to take notes in lectures and so far it's proven to be a preferable method not only for the purposes of making efficient notes in lectures, but also for reading them back and studying. I found compiling a concise collection of all my notes for the exam was really simple and it seemed to take a lot less time than it usually does to compile handwritten notes. I would definitely recommend a laptop or tablet over pen and paper for any students who might be considering whether it's worthwhile. On that note, I am absolutely in love with my MacBook - it is a total joy to use and never ever seems to slow down or be anything other than perfect. Well worth it.

In before one of the lads "humble brags" me...

On Thursday morning I got up fairly early again and continued my studying for the exam, which had a deadline of Friday afternoon sometime. However, since a few of us were planning on going out to Ivy on Thursday night I had decided to get the exam done by Thursday afternoon in order to avoid doing it with a hangover on Friday! After a final few hours studying, I had a shower, made some lunch and sat down to do the exam. For the Anti-Discrimination class, the online exam was worth 25% of the total grade for the course; it took the format of a choice of 5 out of 7 short questions relating to the basic concepts that had been covered in the early weeks of classes. I felt it went quite well and was fairly happy with the answers which I submitted, which meant I could look forward to our night out later on. Around the back of 6 - does anyone know what that actually means because us Scottish students over here have tried explaining the saying to people and none of us even know what time it's supposed to mean - anyway, I made myself some pasta and then took a walk up to Liquorland to buy some wine. It's a bit of a strange set up for purchasing alcohol here since supermarkets aren't allowed to sell any at all - not beer, wine, spirits, or anything, which is very unusual and I have no idea why things are done that way. Luckily there are quite a few liquor stores scattered around the city because of this rule. I returned to the flat with a box of "goon" which is essentially cheap white wine, but it's palatable since it's quite sweet - I also got myself a can of Guinness for $4.90(!) in order to enjoy something nice before we started on the wine.

We had decided we would pre-drink in my flat before we headed out to Ivy. After getting showered, I headed downstairs to let Jordan, Alex, Connor and Jessica inside, finding that they had also brought two more boxes of "goon" - I didn't think we were going to go short on drink anyway. The second Alex, who knows Jordan from back home in the US, arrived some time later and we started some drinking games - Jessica had brought a pack of cards with her so we set up a game of Kings, which is potentially the best drinking game ever. Usually at a party or pre-drinks we'll manage one, or maybe two rounds of Kings, however we managed almost three full rounds before it was decided that it was time to head to Ivy. Rather than get a taxi down to the far end of George Street which would likely be quite expensive, we headed to Central Station and got the train to Wynyard Station, only a few stops away. Whilst we were walking to Ivy, Alex hit the wall and was sick in a bin, so in a very responsible move, Jessica and I marched him back to his flat and headed home. So I still haven't been to Ivy, but we'll try again no doubt!

Friday morning was mostly spent in bed, only interrupted to go and get a McDonalds hangover cure - it was one of those kill you or cure you McDonalds and I felt like crap for a little while afterwards. Brutal. However I soon perked up again and felt spot on again an hour or so later. After chilling out for a little while, I made myself some lunch and decided that I would go and play football in the afternoon, even though I was still pretty tired. The game totally passed me by, as I misplaced pass after pass and could barely left my legs to chase anyone; I had a total shocker, but still scored two goals - the sign of a world class player, when you score even if you're not playing well, right?! Before we played, I took a quick picture of the oval where we play, called St. Pauls' Oval - essentially a cricket pitch, but it does the job and the grass is really quite good to play on.

On Saturday morning I awoke to the news that Scotland had been comfortably beaten 2-0 at home by Belgium in another World Cup Qualifying match - the national team really are going through a truly tragic time just now, not that I get too bothered about international football anyway. Club over country when it comes to football for me, personally. On Saturday afternoon I did some more work on one of several assignments which are due in the next few weeks, watched a film and made some dinner. I also went down to the mailbox for the flat and found a postcard which Andy and Hayley had sent me from their holiday in Tunisia - which had been around 3 weeks ago! Postcard took ages to arrive here after they sent it! Yesterday, I had a long lie before getting up and having a fry-up of sorts - I didn't have any bacon, beans or bread for toasting, so it was just scrambled eggs, sausage and a fried tomato. A trip to the supermarket was in order, I thought. Jordan and I had planned to go to Bondi Beach for the 'Festival of the Winds' which essentially a big kite festival, but the weather was cloudy and rainy on Sunday morning and beach plans were aborted. It was only the third time I've seen rain since I've been here, so you really can't complain. Instead I headed to Coles and after I had been to top of my food supplies, I got down to some more essay writing before watching a film at night. I hadn't seen Men in Black before, but had heard that it was really good, so found it on Netflix and it found it really enjoyable. I'll need to watch the sequels at some point, highly recommend it to anyone else who hasn't seen it.

So, today is Monday once more and time continues to race on by here in Sydney and with another busy week ahead of me it won't be slowing down anytime soon. In just over a week, it will be two whole months since I arrived in Australia - can't quite believe that! Anyway, today it was back to classes at uni, although not Anti-Discrimination which has a reading week - so the day started with Intellectual Property at 2pm followed immediately by Competition. Today's Competition Law class was another guest lecture from a judge of the High Court here in Australia called Justice Hayden. I found his talk reasonably interesting in parts but in truth, was glad that he only spoke for one hour of the two hour class. The remaining time was spent discussing our essays which are due in a few weeks and allowed an opportunity for some questions to be asked about exactly what was expected from the submitted work. Some people raised concern over the deadline dates, stating that they, "had a lot of work due just now" which annoys me somewhat. We are all busy and we all have lots of work to do, unfortunately you still need to work to the deadlines which are set.

Tonight after class I returned home and immediately raced to my laptop to watch the new episode of Breaking Bad; it was another brilliant episode full of drama and surprises. I seriously cannot wait to see how the writers wrap it up and finish the story - I think there are only around 3 episodes still to go now, which is sad because it means it will all be over soon enough. After that I began making dinner which tonight consisted of steak, sweetcorn, fried onions and roasted potatoes. Now, before tonight I considered roasted potatoes to be something which were rather difficult to cook properly and get right since my mum can sometimes get them wrong, and she is an excellent cook generally, but I thought I'd give them a try regardless. The results were fantastic; genuinely brilliant. I passed on the good news to her and she says I can take over cooking duties once I'm home - you know mum, I think I'll pass actually! Again, I've been somewhat boring and busy this week so haven't got any decent pictures to post, however I'll attach one of dinner from tonight. There were some truly brilliant photos from Thursday night on Jessica's phone I believe, but she hasn't been brave enough to share them yet! I look forward to seeing those!

Until next time!
Jamie

Getting busy at uni now!

Good evening - it's transfer deadline day back in the UK today, but I'm a little bit bored of watching Sky Sports News already so thought I'd get this updated.

Last Monday I got up at the usual time for my Anti-Discrimination class, which turned out to be one of the less interesting ones and it dragged on a bit; I may still have been feeling the effects of a tiring weekend. My next class, Intellectual Property was back this week having enjoyed the first reading week and it was a good class once again. I really quite enjoy it, in terms of a subject area and the classes themselves are interesting and engaging. The lecturer is also someone who has a bit of personality, which makes a massive difference I think. Whilst I had been in Anti-Discrimination law on Monday morning, I had read a post on Twitter by StrettyNews looking for someone to do live text commentary for the football that night. Basically, StrettyNews is a Manchester United-dedicated website, where blogs, articles, discussions and analysis are posted - as well as live text coverage of games. I responded to the tweet, pointing out that my experience of doing such things amounted to zero, but that I would be keen to do it. A few messages exchanged back and forth and I was set up and raring to go.

The game wasn't kicking-off until 8pm at home, which wouldn't actually be until 5am on Tuesday morning for me over here. So, after my third and final class of Monday, I walked home, made myself some dinner, watched a truly brilliant new episode of Breaking Bad and had a reasonably early night. It seemed like barely a few minutes later when my alarm erupted in the darkness but I quickly remembered why I was getting up and was instantly awake and alert. The game itself was David Moyes first league match at Old Trafford as the new manager and it was against Chelsea, managed by Jose Mourinho - huge! The match was a bit quiet and less dramatic than predicted; it finished 0-0 but my text commentary was well received. Pretty decent night - or morning, to be more accurate - and I headed back to bed for another few hours sleep. 

On Tuesday I had a few things on my "to-do list" but no classes as usual so it was a fairly quiet morning before I got showered, had some breakfast and headed out. First task was to go to the bank in order to activate my card and choose a pin number - even though you're able to activate your own card online, it requires a registered mobile number with the bank in order to do so. Since I hadn't received my Australian sim card yet, it meant that my mobile number wasn't registered with the bank, so I had to return to the branch to do it there - a bit inconvenient, but all sorted now. Afterwards, I walked around a few more local shops, cafes and restaurants to hand out some more CVs before I returned to the chocolate cafe which I spoke about in my last blog post. I spoke to the manager of the cafe and he said that unfortunately he did not have any positions available for new staff at the moment, which was a bit disappointing, however I'll keep searching for a job somewhere! Too many expensive things I'd love to do to not be able to get a job - I've looked at prices for skydives, bungee jumps and diving, so it would be great to do some cool stuff here! After heading back to the flat I filled out my profile page on the Apple jobs website and submitted an application for a position in the local store here - fingers crossed.

Wednesday brought another day of classes for me and when I came home I cooked and watched some TV for a while. Later on I watched "The Dictator" which is the latest film by Sacha Baron Cohen and it was totally brilliant - absolutely hilarious - well worth a watch but not for the easily offended! Haha! Weather has been gradually getting better the past few days and it's set to continue for the rest of the week - I guess this is the start of Spring now. It's been consistently in the 23-26 degrees range, lovely sunshine and hardly a cloud in the sky; picture postcard weather every day of the week, which is great! On Wednesday night back home, Celtic pulled off an incredible result to reach the Champions League group stages for the second consecutive season - didn't expect them to manage it at all, great achievement. On Thursday I had another day off so had another long lie and a chilled out morning - in the afternoon I had to go and try and chase up my Australian sim card which still hadn't arrived! I managed to get it sorted to be sent to me express post and it arrived the next morning - over a month in Australia and I've just sorted a phone number, not exactly what you would call organised.

On Friday I got up early and headed into uni for my Commercial Dispute Resolution class and just before reaching the campus it dawned on me that we had a reading week. Wasted journey, up early for no reason and a minor annoyance. I decided to make the most of my morning and headed to the library to begin one of several essays which are due in the coming weeks - I managed to smash out around 600 words of it in a couple of hours, which was a good start. Also on Friday, a few of us booked up a hostel in the Blue Mountains for the weekend of the 21st September, which should be really good - it's one of the nicest, most picturesque areas in this part of the country, so there will be a lot of great photos to post when we come back! 

Saturday was another quiet morning filled with breakfast in front of the TV and catching up on some of the latest transfer news from back home, before I headed out to get my haircut. This would be my first haircut since coming here and I was a bit unsure of what to expect - it ended up being a pretty decent job by the guy though and only cost me $10 at a local barbers. After lunchtime, Jessica and I took a walk around Paddy's Market in Chinatown, which is just an absolute haven for stalls selling rubbish, but there are a lot of Australian themed items such as t-shirts, towels and other novelty items which will be great for souvenirs. I'm also needing to buy myself a beach towel but didn't manage to see one unfortunately. Later on we met up with Alex and headed to Bar Broadway - just next door to my flat, and they do student discount drinks at any time - and had a few drinks. The night continued to a karaoke bar close to uni, which was totally empty and the hosts attempts to coerce us into singing to a deserted bar were unsuccessful. Sorry, I'm not that drunk, pal. After a quick stop at Subway to refuel, some of the lads came back to my flat and brought a box of "goon" - the name given to cheap, box wine here. It's basically $14 for 5 litres of quite sweet white wine, popular amongst students for obvious reasons. We eventually headed back out to Star Bar before heading home late.

On Sunday I had a long lie before getting up and making myself some breakfast. I was totally starving having skipped dinner on Saturday and only really having the Subway to eat since lunchtime - pretty much the whole of Sunday was spent eating and chilling out. I watched two films on Netflix and read some previews and analysis of the Man Utd game against Liverpool which was kicking off at 1.30pm back home - 10.30pm over here. The game turned out to be a total disappointment as we lost 1-0 and played really poorly. I went off to bed in a raging mood.

It's now Monday night and we have a reading week for all classes this week, which means lots of free time, although I will need to push on with the essays and assignments which I have due. There is also an online exam which I need to complete for Anti-Discrimination law before the Friday deadline, so that will require some studying for before I do it - it's optional when we start the exam, but once we begin then there is a time limit on completing it; hopefully it goes alright since it'll count towards the first 25% of my grade in the class. Again tonight I've caught up on the latest episode of Breaking Bad which was brilliant - the show is heading to a massive finale! As I said at the start, it's transfer deadline day so I've spent the night watching Sky Sports News to find out the latest happenings at home. I also made some French onion soup for dinner, with enough left for lunch tomorrow - and strong compliments go to the chef, it was great! That's all I've got for now.

Until next time,

Jamie