On Friday, Jessica and I visited Parliament House near the Botanic Gardens in the city. It is the building where the Parliament of New South Wales is found; the state government being entirely separate from the national-level government which is found in Canberra. In truth, the building itself was a little underwhelming and whilst it is 'open' to the public, many of the interesting parts were closed. In fact, if it weren't for a large gallery of photographs which were being displayed as part of a competition, there wouldn't have been much to see at all. There was an extremely cool water-feature in the centre of the main lobby though.
The aforementioned water-feature and some of the photographs which were on display.
The Legislative Council Chamber, inside the Parliament building.
The Vice Regal Chair, in the Legislative Council Chamber. This is where the representative of the Australian monarch, Queen Elizabeth, sits. The position is currently held by Professor Marie Bashir and she lives in Government House - which we visited next.
We walked through the Botanic Gardens on our way towards the Opera House, which sits just in front of Government House.
This is the huge glass, pyramid greenhouse which sits in the Botanic Gardens. Unfortunately, it was also closed on the day.
Government House is located within the Botanic Gardens and feels totally secluded from the city itself. It's clearly an old building, but also has some modern touches and the garden has a swimming pool. They conduct tours of the building on Friday each week and I'm planning to go back and see inside before I go home, since it looks amazing through the windows!
This is essentially the view from the gardens of Government House. Not a bad place to live, by any means. The Opera House is just behind the trees to the right of this picture.
Afterwards, we headed to the Cafe on the Rocks and had cake and coffee. The lemon meringue pie was majestic again. Feeling suitably stuffed, we caught the bus back to Railway Square and headed home to book our flights to Melbourne and Tasmania. The plan is to fly from Sydney to Melbourne after my exam on the 21st June, then a few days later we'll fly over to Tasmania from Melbourne. After another few days in Tasmania, we'll catch a final flight back to Sydney, before Kerry arrives in Sydney the next morning. After sorting all of that out, we headed out for dinner in Chinatown. I had honey chicken, which was excellent, but Jessica managed to top that with prawns in black bean sauce, which was even better. We moved on to the Hotel CBD for a drink after dinner before Jessica caught the train home.
The next day, we planned to walk to Manly Head. Jessica arrived in the morning and we headed to Woolworths to get some food and grab a coffee for breakfast. Fed and watered, we took the ferry from Circular Quay over to Manly. It was a stunning day and we began our walk from near Manly beach, which was as nearly busy as I have ever seen it, even though it is now technically winter.
Yeah, winter...
Not long after we started the walk, we spotted this little penguin perched on a rock. Very cool!
At first, the path was dusty and rocky, as it wound through bush and scrub. There wasn't much to see and it was so hot and sticky. Every once in a while, there was a little break, affording pretty brilliant views from the cliff tops. We also came across some old army bunkers and gun turrets, which were quite cool.
Horizon as far as the eye can see.
In truth, the walking was getting a bit tiresome without much to see and I was starting to wonder what the fuss was all about in regard to walking to Manly Head. However, we eventually reached the other side of the peninsula and suddenly the whole walk had been more than worth it. I really feel that the pictures won't do the views justice, but I'll do my best.
We stopped and had lunch here, before snapping some more photos. Apparently, it has been noted that I do the same pose every time I have my photo taken in a nice place, but I don't care.
In contrast, here is Jessica acting like Carol Vorderman on Countdown!
We continued our walk around the cliffs before circling back and heading towards Manly again. Feeling suitably exhausted, we went and had ice cream and chilled at the beach for a while before catching the ferry back to the city. Jessica caught the train back home and I headed back to Iglu, eagerly anticipating the FA Cup Final and La Liga conclusions later that night.
Since it was International Whisky Day, Jack insisted that he and I head out for a drink. I agreed to one, so that I could get some sleep before the football started. We went to Freda's and enjoyed a really nice 11 year old Oban single malt. After Jack took his obligatory Instagram photo, we walked back to Iglu and I got off to bed for a power nap. The football was kicking off around 2am and I seriously considered rolling back over and returning to my sleep when my alarm went off to get me up. It's always much easier to get up when it's United who are playing; I was far less motivated by the prospect of getting up to watch Arsenal potentially win a trophy. However, the potential that they might lose was too good to miss, so I dragged myself out of bed.
Here is Jack in high spirits shortly before kick off. Needless to say, he was less enthusiastic when Hull City took an early two-goal lead. Oh, how we laughed!
Unfortunately, Arsenal got back into the game and eventually took the match to extra time, when Aaron Ramsey scored a winner. Over in Spain, Atletico Madrid managed a draw at the Nou Camp against Barcelona to win their first title since 1996 and disrupt the Real Madrid-Barcelona duopoly for the first time since 2004. An incredible achievement. After the football finished, I was faced with the prospect of staying up for another two hours to watch the German Cup Final between Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund or getting to bed to get some sleep. The next morning, when I discovered that the German game had finished 0-0 at full-time, I was pleased with my decision to go to bed. Sunday was spent doing uni work - the joys.
On Monday I had a bit of a headache, so I decided to stay at home and do some work on my Criminology essay rather than going in to class. There isn't an awful lot of incentive to go to class at this point in semester, especially when I have essays instead of exams in a couple of them. In other news, Man Utd finally had a new manager after Louis van Gaal was finally announced officially, although it was coupled with the bittersweet news that Ryan Giggs would be retiring from playing to become the assistant manager. I don't think his achievements will ever be beaten in the modern game. The ultimate professional and the ultimate legend of our club. I'm very glad he'll still be around though. I took another step towards the conclusion of my university life on Wednesday, as I finalised my dissertation subject. After much consideration, I decided to enquire about the possibility of building a question focused on contract law, specifically looking at footballers contracts, movement of labour and transfer markets. I was informed that it was a much more original idea than my original criminal law proposal and that it would be far easier to make this new topic stand out from the crowd. That's that decided then. After uni on Thursday, I spent a while (admittedly with the help of Jessica, which was very much appreciated!) cleaning my flat, ready for our inspection the next day. I have to say, I keep the place clean and tidy anyway, but the inspections are meticulous, so everything needs to be spotless.
Jessica and I had plans to tick another few things from our respective to-do lists on Friday. We caught the train and bus out to Bondi beach where we went for breakfast, before beginning the walk from Bondi to Coogee. I'd done the walk before, in the opposite direction, but was looking forward to doing it again, hopeful that it might be less busy than the previous occasion. It was another brilliant day and I snapped some great photos.
Breakfast by the beach.
Bondi beach in the morning.
Surfers making the most of fairly calm conditions in a bay just around the corner from Tamarama beach.
Here's me not far from the part of the walk which goes by a cemetery on the cliffs. Very strange.
When we got to Coogee, I jumped into the rock pool baths for a swim, which I had planned on doing for a while. It was rather chilly, so I didn't stay in for long, although it is winter. Try doing that in Scotland in winter.
After some time was spent relaxing on the beach at Coogee, we caught the first of two buses out towards Maroubra, where we were going to visit the Scottish butcher. After some solid navigating, we reached our destination and struggled not to go over the top on food from back home. Eventually, we settled on a steak pie, some black pudding and tattie scones. Superb! We caught the bus back to Central, eagerly anticipating dinner! We stuck the steak pie in the oven and made mash potatoes, carrots and gravy to go with it - all topped off with a couple of cans of Irn Bru! Amazing!
Needless to say, dinner was immense. Breakfast the next morning was pretty good too, as we enjoyed black pudding, scrambled eggs and tattie scones.
Saturday was spent in the library, writing my Criminology essay, ready to be handed in on Tuesday. After a good day of work, I headed home and had dinner, followed by some FIFA with Jack in the evening. I got an early night because I was getting back up early to watch the Champions League Final. Typically, given that I was hoping to get back to bed at a decent time so I could get on with my essay again on Sunday, the match went to extra time, after a late Sergio Ramos header levelled the scores. Eventually, Real Madrid banged in three goals in the additional time to win their tenth European Cup. I was pleased for Ronaldo and happy that Diego Simeone didn't get his hands on the trophy given his history with David Beckham and Manchester United. It was back to the grind on Sunday, after a long lie; more essay writing.
I was back to classes on Monday morning, although since some of them had now finished, I only had one each day. That meant I had IP and then it was off to the library again to complete my essay before the next morning. Gladly, it was all but finished by the early evening, leaving me just needing to read over my work for typos and spelling errors. I submitted it online the next morning and also received my grade for the presentation which I had made a few weeks previously in Criminology class; I got 8 out of 10, so I was pleased with that. In the afternoon, I had my penultimate Evidence class, after which I played football in Victoria Park, followed by some FIFA back home at night.
On Tuesday night, Jack and I were going to play FIFA but found one of the controllers was sticking. We took the brave decision to unscrew the back of it, open up the insides and attempt to fix the sticking button.
Incredibly, we managed to fix it somewhat, without it being as good as new and put all the pieces back together and it still works. If I were to apply for some sort of engineering job, I'd be putting that achievement down on my CV!
On Wednesday night, Jessica and I decided to finally go and see the Vivid Sydney festival lights. The festival has a huge array of lights, lasers and interactive zones throughout the city centre for a number of weeks each year. This building was illuminated to look like a large tree, with birds and animals living in it.
This is the Museum of Contemporary Art, near the harbour and it was lit up with an amazing set of projections, set in time to music. I thought the people with the cubed heads were quite Daft Punk-inspired!
Finally, the highlight of the festival for everyone - the Opera House!
Unfortunately, my photos of the Opera House aren't particularly good. After seeing the lights, we went for a drink at Opera Bar, though it was pretty cold, so we didn't stay long.
I woke up on Thursday morning to the news that Malcolm Glazer, the former owner and general parasite of Manchester United has passed away. The less said about Glazer and his legacy the better, I think. After getting up and having some breakfast, I began writing this post, since I didn't have any classes. There was supposed to be one more Evidence class in the afternoon, but I went to play football instead, which meant that classes had now finished in Sydney. The next time I'll sit in a lecture or tutorial will be back in Glasgow! The football started around 2pm in Wentworth Park and it was to be a full 11-a-side game against the Korean Society from uni. I started the game with a goal inside the first minute and doubled our lead with a second goal shortly before half time. We finished the half leading two-nil through my two goals and we were playing well. Some changes were made at half time and the second half descended into a bit of a shambles, with the score finishing something like 6-5 or 6-6. I'm really not sure since I lost count, amidst overriding fury at the incompetence of our defensive efforts.
I headed home after the game and went straight in the shower. Whilst you don't get muddy from making tackles here, you do get covered in a sort of dusty dirt instead. You end up looking like a coal miner, which is pretty horrible. Jessica had been in uni and headed over to my place afterwards; I cooked fish and chips and made apple crumble too, which was again finished within 24 hours! It must be good! We had a lazy day yesterday, spending most of the day doing nothing, except watching Deja Vu which is a brilliant film! Jessica headed home in the afternoon and I played FIFA with Jack for a while. Later on, there was a party on in Iglu and we played beer pong, which I won, for the first time ever!
Today has been spent in the library. Not how I would spend my ideal Saturday, admittedly, but needs must since I have a take home exam that needs to be completed by Wednesday. That'll be taking up the majority of my weekend.
Until next time,
Jamie
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