Final Weeks of Uni

After studying the day before, Sunday brought about the first day of my penultimate month in Australia, however the studying continued. With a deadline for my Intellectual Property Law take home exam looming on Wednesday, the clock was ticking to get it completed. Monday and Tuesday were spent finishing, editing and making the final changes to my answer before it was handed in. I was pleased with the final version and I'm fairly confident that I covered all the issues and handled them appropriately. We shall see how it goes when the results come out!

After the IP take home exam was handed in, it was straight back to work on the essay which was due for my Advanced Evidence class. The deadline was the following Friday, so there was plenty of time to complete it. Needless to say however, having just handed in another essay, motivation was lacking and I didn't get off to a racing start. I afforded myself a night off from working and was looking forward to a trip to the cinema with Jessica, which was supposed to be an enjoyable experience, of course. In reality, almost the entire duration of 'The Fault in Our Stars' was a depressing torrent of despair and tragedy. It was an alright film, but I wouldn't rush to see it again. I am pleased to say that I am still all-there emotionally and did not shed a tear, though the same could not be said for most other people in the cinema. 

On our way home, Jessica and I stopped off at the ice cream shop near Central and then returned to Iglu. The girls in the flat had been enjoying dinner together and were still chatting over some wine when we returned, so we joined them for a while and got to know our new flatmate a little better. After Pamela moved out this week, a new French girl called Anoucha arrived. She seems lovely so far though I haven't spoken to her much having been so busy with uni. On Saturday, Jessica and I visited the Chinese Gardens near Darling Harbour, which we hadn't been to before. The gardens were quite nice and we spent some time wandering around and spying on the wedding which was taking place whilst we were there. We spotted a handful of people at the wedding who were engrossed in their phones and also slagged some people off who were looking shabby - out of ear-shot of course! 

Here is a photo of the Chinese Gardens, with some apartments in the background. It was strange for such nice gardens to be found right in the middle of the city. It felt very much out of place.

There were a great number of huge fish in the pond and streams around the gardens.

We left the gardens and took a walk around Pyrmont, admiring the stunning flats and yachts which are found down there.

The main reason for heading down to Pyrmont however, was to visit the fish markets. There are a handful of huge fishmongers all along the same section of the harbour and it seems to be the place to go for fresh seafood in Sydney. They have all of the regular, familiar kinds of fish you might expect to find in the supermarket, as well as a great selection of weird and wonderful fillets and shellfish which I had never seen before. The live crabs and lobsters were a particular highlight!

After browsing for a while, mainly in awe of the sheer volume of fish on offer, we bought ourselves some tuna steaks and walked back to my flat through Wentworth Park. We stopped by Woolies and got some salad and a bottle of wine to have with dinner. I cooked the tuna steaks and whilst they were pink and rare, as I feel they're best, Jessica didn't think that was right so they went back in the pan. I was justified later in the week however, when Marco Pierre White cooked tuna steaks on TV during Australian Masterchef and they looked exactly like mine had. Needless to say, I was very pleased with that! Haha!

It was back to work on Sunday, though I afforded myself a long lie before settling in to continue writing my essay.  At night, I played FIFA for a few hours and then it was time for bed, in preparation for repeating the process of essay writing again the following day. Brutal. Luckily, I had something to distract me during my endless hours of typing, as Kasabian's new album had been released. I listened to it from beginning to end probably four or five times on that first day and I was absolutely loving it! It's gone straight in as one of my favourite Kasabian albums - it really is that good. They're going to smash Glastonbury.

I stayed up late on Monday night to watch the start of the 2014 E3 Conference. For those who don't know, it's essentially where all the big gaming companies, such as Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, come together each year to show off their new games and technologies. It's a bit geeky, but it's really great if you're into that kind of thing. I watched Microsoft's presentation, which started around 2am and then got off to sleep for a while before EA's conference. The big attraction there being a trailer for the new FIFA game, of course. After another few hours of sleep, it was finally time for Sony's conference around 11am. They showed off some brilliant new stuff, including a virtual reality headset and my desire to finally get myself a Playstation 4 was further reinforced. After that excitement, it was back to essay writing and studying for the rest of the day.

The routine of studying continued on Wednesday, though I did take some time off to find a Father's Day present for Dad, as well as making a card on Moonpig. Kerry and I chatted on FaceTime and decided on a couple of things to get him and I trawled through some old photos to make the card. We got him tickets to the Scottish Car Show in July, some beer glasses and the Wolf of Wall Street DVD. Everything was sorted out with a few days to spare and it has to be said, my ability to remember birthday cards, Christmas cards and various presents whilst I've been in Australia has been exemplary. Even if I do say so myself. Thursday was the final full day of work on the Evidence essay and it was almost ready to be handed in. An early night was in order on Thursday, since the FIFA World Cup in Brazil began early the next morning. Even with an essay deadline looming the next day, I got up bright and early to see Brazil beat Croatia 3-1 to open the tournament.

I finished off the final parts of my essay on Friday morning, after catching up on some sleep, since the deadline was at 4pm that day. Relief was the overwhelming feeling when I handed my final essay in, though I arrived back down to earth with a bump almost immediately upon remembering that I still had my one and only exam to sit. Back at home, Kerry passed her driving theory test, which was great and Mum and Dad were heading off to Pitlochry for their silver wedding anniversary. Kerry and I decided to get them a gift for the occasion and we settled on a print of Eulogy to a Dead Admiral by Jack Vettriano and hoped that they would like it.

There was also some pleasant news received on Friday, as Jessica was surprised with a stay in the Four Seasons Hotel at Sydney Harbour the following night. I was lucky enough to be invited along and hastily accepted! I had another early night on Friday and got back up early to watch Netherlands versus Spain game at the World Cup. The early alarm call was well worth it as the Netherlands demolished the reigning world champions by five goals to one, putting a massive dent in their chances of retaining the trophy. Personally, I was most pleased to see Louis van Gaal conducting a tactical masterclass and Robin van Persie capped his wonderful performance with two goals. Things are looking good for United next season, if that performance is anything to go by. After the game, I went back to bed and had a long lie. On Saturday morning, I got showered and had breakfast, then headed into the city to get myself a bag which I had been looking at for a while.

In the afternoon, Jessica and I headed down to the Four Seasons Hotel and checked in. The room was fantastic and had an unbelievable view of the Opera House and harbour.

The definition of a room with a view.

 As nice as the view was and as much as we were enjoying it, we did have dinner plans, so had to drag ourselves away from the window and out of the room. We had decided to go to Mr Wong's Chinese restaurant and headed there for around 7pm, having been informed that they did not take reservations. We arrived to find a small queue at the door but learned that there would be a one hour wait for a table. Feeling hungry, we decided that we wouldn't be hanging around and headed off to find another place. Whilst we were outside the restaurant, a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce Phantom pulled up and four people climbed out, strolled inside the restaurant and were taken straight to a table. As always, it's not what you know, but who you know.

We walked up George Street and decided to try the Felix restaurant in the lane near Ivy. Gladly, they had a table available and we were pleased by the prospect of dinner finally! As Jessica was flicking through the wine menu, a waiter approached and asked if we needed some help. Feeling overwhelmed by choice, we gratefully accepted some advice. He told us that there were over 800 wines on the list and proceeded to detail the intricate flavours and tastes in several of them. Neither of us pretend to be wine connoisseurs, so plucked for a somewhat random choice, though it turned out to be very nice. The food was also great and it was definitely one of the best meals I've enjoyed in Sydney. I had a cheese soufflé with a rocket salad, followed by a rainbow trout fillet, which was exceptionally good. We headed back to the hotel and chilled out by the window for a while with a glass of wine.

Jessica took some artistic photos, capturing myself seemingly deep in thought.

I set an alarm for 8am on Sunday morning and we watched England against Italy before getting up. Whilst England played quite well, they didn't do enough and didn't take their chances, finishing up on the end of a 2-1 defeat. Not a good start to their tournament. We got up, got ready and gathered our things, ready to check out before heading for breakfast.

I snapped another quick picture in the morning, before leaving the hotel.

We weren't sure where to go for breakfast, so had a look online for somewhere we maybe hadn't been before. At this late stage of our time in Sydney, a real effort is being made to experience as many different things and places as possible, which means attempting to not eat in the same places more than once or twice. We chose a cafe in the Rocks and managed to arrive just as it started to rain, which was perfect. The place was rather strange and the tables were arranged in a corridor of prison cells. I can honestly say that I've never had breakfast in an old prison before. Very odd. The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing, as the serious studying was due to start again the next day.

Monday's are never much fun, but when Monday means studying in preparation for an exam, it's even more dreadful. My exam was the following Saturday, so there was plenty of time to go, though there was also a lot of work to get through in that time. Back home, it was Father's Day and Dad was pleased with his presents, whilst both Mum and Dad liked the painting we had got them for their anniversary. At night, the finale of the latest season of Game of Thrones was on TV, which I enjoyed with a KFC downstairs. The episode was brilliant, as expected and there were a few twists and turns along the way too. I'm looking forward to the next season already!

Most of the remainder of the week was spent studying and taking notes for my exam. This was to be my first exam on a Saturday and I hoped it would be my last. As if exams couldn't get any worse, surely arranging them on a weekend should be against the rules.

Friday was my last full day of studying before my Private International Law exam, so I got up quite early and got to work. I had planned a study break for the afternoon; Jessica and I headed to Government House where we were going on a tour. We had visited the house and gardens a few weeks previous, though hadn't gone inside since we had been too late for the last tour of the day. We caught the free bus from Railway Square down to Circular Quay and made our way towards the Botanic Gardens, making it just in time for the last tour. The house was amazing inside, although we weren't allowed to take photographs unfortunately, except inside the ballroom. We didn't learn a lot of new information, though we did find out that until recently the house had not actually been occupied by the Governor of New South Wales. Only two weeks previously though, that had been changed and the current Governor was due to move back in and use the property as a permanent residency. I suspect tours will be stopped again quite soon, so it was pretty cool to have managed to squeeze one in before they do!

I snapped a sneaky picture from the ballroom back towards the drawing room, which was decked out in very traditional decor, but also had a very loud 80s-style carpet. It was a baffling combination.

This is one end of the ballroom, where each new Governor is sworn into their position.

After our tour, we walked back to the city and I headed home in order to continue studying, with my exam the next day. I finally had all of my notes completed and felt prepared for the exam. At the same time, I was trying to choose classes for next year, make sure I was ready for going away to Melbourne after my exam and also ready for Kerry arriving the following week. It was a rather stressful evening!

On Saturday morning, I had a long lie after a reasonably late night of studying, before getting out of bed and having some breakfast. I spent the morning doing some final studying for my exam, as well as packing my bag and organising all of my things to go to Melbourne later that night. I hadn't received an email offering me online check-in for my flight, which worried me. Panicking a little, I found a booking confirmation number from my bank statement and used it to access my flight information on the Tiger website and it became clear why I hadn't received any emails. I had typed my email address in wrong when I had booked the flight, though the problem was solved!

My exam went quite well and I was extremely pleased to be finished the semester. My final exam in Sydney was completed, as well as my time at Sydney University. The next time I sat in a class, wrote an essay or took an exam, I would be back in Glasgow. I walked home from campus, barely able to stop smiling at the prospect of studying being finished and flying off to Melbourne on holiday! I got home, checked that I had remembered all of my things in my bag and headed off to catch the train to the airport.

Melbourne here I come!

Some nice walks, Scottish food and Vivid Sydney!

After my weekend in Brisbane, it was back to uni on Monday morning. This stage in semester is always tough as you approach the end, seemingly just rolling from one deadline to the next and generally always having something which needs done. It's not much fun. The week passed by without event really, though I did receive the result from my Private International Law exam; I got 73% which I was fairly pleased with. Most of my time in between classes was spent reading and researching for my Criminology essay which was due the following week and had - at the beginning of the week - not yet been started.

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

A long overdue catch-up!

This post is likely to be quite long and also quite patchy in places since it's been almost two weeks since I've written an update, so there may prove to be some difficulties in remembering everything that has been happening in the mean time. 

My last post was Tuesday, 8th October and since there was a law school reading week it meant no classes until the following Monday, however on Wednesday there was an optional revision lecture in my IP class. There was strong internal conflict of whether to attend it or not, but eventually I got the preparation work done and went along; I was quite happy that I did since it turned out to be quite useful in covering some of the more difficult issues of the course. I hope that my eventual decision to put a bit of effort in even where none was required might pay off when it comes to exam time! After class I headed to the Post Office on campus to enquire about the cost of posting my football boots back to Sports Direct in the UK because they had burst open around the front seam on the right boot after only three months of use! I sent a firmly worded email to the customer service department and they suggested that I post the boots back for inspection - clearly, they didn't read my email properly and missed that part where I said I was currently in Australia since they provided me with a free-post address which only works within the United Kingdom. It turns out that the cost to ship the boots home would have been around £50, which seemed crazy since the boots were only worth a little over £50 themselves. I emailed Sports Direct once more and suggested that a refund may be more appropriate, which was then sorted out for me. I'm now looking forward to going to find myself a new pair of boots. I also spotted these Harley Davidson motorcycles, parked just outside the Quadrangle at uni - very cool!

On Thursday the weather was supposed to be excellent - as warm as it had been since I arrived in Australia - so Jordan, Jessica, Alex and I decided to head to Manly Beach. Although they had each been previously, it was my first time venturing over to the other side of the harbour and I enjoyed the short ferry ride from Circular Quay, taking in views of some truly amazing houses on the waterfront. The temperature was around 35 celsius for most of the day, but the water provided a welcome cool down; it was actually the first time I had been swimming in the sea in Australia - taken me long enough! We headed to a little burger place for lunch which did a deal on Tuesday and Thursday where you can get a burger, fries and a drink for $10 - the burgers are great and the portion of chips is almost too large to finish comfortably, but of course I managed them. After another hour or two at the beach, we got changed and headed back towards the ferry terminal, although we stopped at the Four Pines Micro Brewery before catching the boat back to Sydney. The beer sold in the pub is brewed at Manly and they have a range of different beer types as well as some ciders - they do offer a taster selection, however I opted for a pint of Pale Ale which was fantastic! Might just have to make time and go back to try the taster menu I think! We headed back on the ferry and then caught the free bus from Circular Quay to Central Station; Jordan headed off to go and meet his friends from the airport who were arriving from Brisbane whilst Alex and I went to the Prince Alfred Park to relax at the swimming pool for the rest of the afternoon.

It's a hard life!

Here is a picture outside the brewery and then one of Alex and Jordan enjoying a beer at the Four Pines Brewery, in Manly.

On Friday, I spent most of the day just chilling out in the flat after having a long lie. I've started watching Orange is the New Black on Netflix, which is alright but it isn't great - I really need to find another good TV show to watch. The plan on Friday night was potentially to go to Jordan and Connor's place for a party, but Alex, Jessica and I met up for a drink before we headed there. We went to Bar Broadway, just near my flat, then went to a liquor store to pick up some wine for the night - I also spotted a bottle of the Four Pines Brewery Stout which Jordan enjoys so I bought him a bottle. Unfortunately, they didn't have the Pale Ale which I prefer, which was a shame. Jordan's friends, Joe and Tiffany, from back home in America were there since they were visiting from Brisbane for the weekend and Connor also had three friends over who he also knew from back home - Alex and Mike also joined us too. The night was really good and I think everyone had an enjoyable night - I was a bit worse for wear the next morning, so it must have been a big night. Moving on.

The plan for Saturday was to go to Coogee and spend the day at the beach - another place which I was yet to visit. Most of the people who had been at the party the night before came along and it was another scorching day. It was great to just chill out and relax on the beach; although I did go in the water and have a swim for a bit, I spent most of the day half-asleep on my beach towel with my iPod playing. Afterwards, we caught the bus back to Central, although we ended up on a bus which took us to Newtown, where the driver informed us that it would be the last stop. We got off and headed towards the train station to take the short journey to Central using an alternative mode of transport, only to find that the trains were not running due to track works - some orientation work was required but we soon found the correct temporary bus stop to take us back towards home. Whilst waiting on the bus, an Australian bloke approached us to ask for directions, to which we did our best but pointed out that we were not locals and should really have been asking him for the directions. He said he was from Tasmania and asked where we all came from - which was a bit odd since Mike was wearing an 'I Am Canadian' t-shirt. Seriously. The conversation went something like this;

Tasmanian bloke: "Ahhh where you all from?!"

Connor: "Some of us are from the United States..."

Mike: "I'm from Canada, as you can see." (pointing towards his t-shirt)

Tasmanian bloke: "Woah! How's that going?"

Connor: "It's alright."

This was followed by 30 seconds of total silence as we looked at the guy and he looked at Connor, each waiting for someone to say something. Mike and I just gutted ourselves laughing and the guy walked off; it was such a strange experience and the guy had such a weird, uneasy manner about him. In hindsight, it won't seem very funny to anyone reading this, but I'll always look back and remember the total awkwardness of the entire situation - it still makes me laugh now, just replaying it in my head. 

Anyway, here is a picture from Coogee. 

On Saturday night we headed to Darling Harbour to watch the fireworks again, which was actually quite enjoyable. I think when there is less expectation with fireworks the better they are - realistically, firework displays are all a bit too similar really. Afterwards, we headed to the Noodle Festival in Hyde Park, near the city centre, where there is currently lots of market stalls set up with hundreds of tables and chairs set up, under fantastic lights as well as a DJ playing chilled house music. It's all very cool and we were all starving after rushing out after returning from the beach without any dinner, so the noodles were very much appreciated. Once we had eaten, we walked to a bar called Shady Pines which Mike had been to before and highly recommended - it was on Oxford Street, where most of the gay bars are in Sydney, but I took his word for it. On the way, we walked through some 'modern art' in Hyde Park - essentially a whole load of mirrored columns with lights on them, which make for a very strange experience, especially at night! It turned out that the bar was excellent and we decided we would definitely return another time. Later on, a different place was suggested which had a stage where a live band was playing, as well as a dance floor where the DJ had some awesome song selections - including the Bee Gees, which proved to be popular! However, far and away the strangest thing about this place - which I cannot remember the name of - was the glass room which separated the two halves of the building and contained a large, bald headed man dressed up in stockings and twirling feather boas. People were queuing to have photos taken with him and every now and then he would come up to the glass which looked into the dance floor and make scary faces in the darkness. It was all very weird and certainly not anything like I had ever seen in a bar or a club before. I also wasn't brave enough to snap a picture of him, so imagination will have to do the work.

On Sunday I just chilled out and watched TV really - totally lazy day which was well needed after a busy weekend. I also had the exciting prospect of having to go back to classes on Monday, which meant I had to get some work done for those as well. Mum text me some pictures of the illuminations at Blackpool - I'm not really sure why they have chosen to spend a few days of the October holidays in Blackpool because I'm quite sure they hate the place, but there you go. I was delighted to hear that they had spotted a convoy of Focus RS's driving along the promenade but when I asked to see some photos my excitement turned to disappointment upon learning that between mum, dad and Kerry, they hadn't managed to get on single photo which wasn't fuzzy. Some photography classes could be in order for that lot!

Monday brought around the harsh reality of classes once again; the day dragged on and I was very pleased to get home and chill out. The weather had also taken a cold turn and I realised that I am now totally acclimatised to Sydney temperatures when I was wishing I had brought my parka from home and it was only 14 degrees celsius. How times have changed. On Tuesday I spent most of the day writing my Competition Law essay which was due on Friday, as well as doing some more work for Wednesday's classes. I was really looking forward to getting this essay done since it was the last piece of submitted work which I had to hand in before the exams, and it also meant the last deadline which had to be met before our trip to Cairns! On Tuesday afternoon I went to Victoria Park to play football with the Soccer Society lads and got some promising news on the employment front - my friend, Ash, from football works in Harvey Norman at Bondi Junction and he had said to his manager that I was looking for a job. It turns out that the manager is looking for some temporary Christmas staff and I've since passed my CV on to him - so fingers crossed I will soon be earning some pocket money! 

The next day was another long day full of classes, although the pain was subsided somewhat by the news that Still Game is coming back! Fantastic to hear that we are going to be treated to some more of the best comedy on TV! Afterwards, I headed home, made dinner and watched some more of Orange is the New Black before heading to bed - almost finished it already, so needing another thing to watch once more. Thursday meant that I had one full day to get my essay done before the deadline on Friday, so I spent most of the day indoors working behind my laptop screen - always a chore. There were some quite serious bush fires around New South Wales on Thursday, which caused the sky over the city to be filled with smoke, which had an eerie orange glow as the sun shone through behind it - very apocolyptic-like. I didn't manage to go out to get some good photos myself, since I was inside doing my essay all day, but I got this one from the window in the flat, and my iPhone weather app told me there was "smoke" which was quite cool! Also heard the news that mum and dad have been looking at a new motorhome - which is a fairly regular activity, to be fair - but it seems like this time it might actually be happening and the current RV may be going after 7 years. We'll wait and see, I guess!

Most of the smoke had dispersed from the skies by Friday morning, but we kept the windows in the flat closed regardless, to save the place getting all dusty - although the fires raged on and even made the news back home in the UK. Must be serious! I headed to my Commercial Dispute Resolution class, then to the library to print off my essay before handing it in to the Law building. It was a fantastic relief to have it handed in, so I went and had some lunch before heading back out to play football in the afternoon. 

I was planning on probably having a quiet night after the football, however Mike and Jordan texted me to find out if I wanted to go out to Shady Pines - the pub on Oxford Street - again, along with Connor. I didn't take a lot of convincing and said they should head over to mines to meet up and have a drink before we headed out. We caught the train from Central to Town Hall and made the short walk across Hyde Park to Oxford Street. We had a strange experience in the line whilst waiting to get in, as a random girl approached us and asked us to keep an eye out for her Asian friend called Peter, who was very drunk, and asked us if we saw him to shout him over and take him into the bar with us. We were quite confused and asked her why she wasn't going to look for her friend herself, to which she responded that she was going back inside and didn't want to stand around waiting. Fairly poor friend, I thought; we never did see Peter either. Again, we had a great night in the Shady Pines - I'm not quite sure why I enjoy the place so much, but it is a great little pub. It's in a strange location and you would never even know it was there if you simply walked by; when you venture inside, you are immediately struck by how dark it is and your eyes take a second to adjust to the dim light. The whole place is quite small and lit simply by candle light, whilst you can't help but notice the enormous moose head and sets of antlers which adorn the walls - the place has character, certainly. There is also a beer menu which would put most wine lists to shame, as well as a fine collection of whiskeys and bourbons. The music is also very appropriate and we enjoyed some Bruce Springsteen tracks - although the highlight was the entire place singing along to 'Sweet Caroline'. What a great bar! 

Here is a picture of Jordan with potentially the most feminine drink on the menu, in the Shady Pines! Haha!

After a long night, which ended up in the Abercrombie, I headed home and got to bed. I will admit that the Abercrombie was really good, even though I have previously slated it and called it a sticky-carpet joint. I had a long lie on Saturday morning and spent the whole day eating and watching TV - I have started watching the West Wing on the recommendation of dad, who says I'll love it. It has a hefty seven seasons and it has been excellent so far, so I'm hoping I can really get into it like I did with Breaking Bad or Lost beforehand. On Saturday evening, a few of us in the flat headed downstairs to play table tennis for a while before dinner - I was totally shattered and could barely concentrate on the game, so got myself some Solo - which is like Fanta Lemon - and a Snickers out the vending machine and chilled out for a bit. I tried to get to bed early seeing as I was really tired and wanted to watch the Man Utd game at 1am, but literally could not sleep; the result of which was that I could hardly keep my eyes open during most of the second half of the football. I was soon wide awake and alert when Southampton netted a late equaliser though and willed the team on to get a winning goal, but it wasn't to be and we trudged to another home draw. It has been a tough start to the season.

Me and Khurram battling it out at table tennis.

Today I have had another quiet day after sleeping in until after noon this morning - must have needed it! I spent the afternoon getting some washing done and then cooking some pasta for dinner. It's also taken me the best part of an hour to write this blog post because it was so long since I last updated it - I seriously need to start doing it more regularly. 

Anyway, only two more weeks of classes until we go to Cairns and I celebrate my birthday - exciting times! Goodnight!

Lots of work and Extreme Gelato!

It feels like ages since I've written and yet it has only been a little over one week since my last post. In that week I've been working hard and kept very busy with work at uni, however I haven't really been up to much else unfortunately. I'm going to try and remember the interesting parts of the past seven days - those moments where I wasn't stuck behind my laptop writing assignments!

My week started pretty poorly after the fantastic trip to the Blue Mountains; after returning home, having dinner and writing my blog post, I headed to bed early and set my alarm for some daft time in the middle of the night in order to get up and watch the Manchester Derby. At some unknown time, I stirred and realised that there was a fair amount of light behind my blinds; I immediately knew I had slept through the football - gutted! How had I even managed to do that when the last thing I did before falling asleep was to set my alarm?! When I checked my phone, I realised that the alarm had in fact went off properly and I had simply slept right through it - must have been seriously shattered from the weekend of walking. It was now around 6am and the game was over, so I opened up the internet on my phone to check the BBC Sport website and find out how my team had got on...only to be met by an absolute horror-show result. Disaster. We had lost 4-1 to one of our biggest rivals. I didn't read any further and in a foul mood, I rolled over and went back to sleep.

Monday morning brought my first day of a full timetable for a few weeks, due to having various reading weeks in the different classes. Given the result from the football I wasn't in the greatest of moods and really didn't feel that six hours of class was going to make me feel any better. The day plodded along and was largely unmemorable. It's amazing how much a football team impacts your mood and feelings, some people obviously won't understand that and never will truly get it, but there will be other people who know exactly what I mean. I was delighted to get home and fired up Netflix on the laptop to watch my weekly episode of Breaking Bad; couldn't quite believe there would only be one more to go. It was brilliant as always and I keep finding myself preaching about it to everyone who will listen. Just watch it and thank me later - it simply is that good.

On Tuesday morning I got up quite early again, pleased that I had managed to maintain my habit of quite early rises since the weekend in the Blue Mountains. I always prefer it when I am in the habit of getting up at a decent time and making more of the day, but it always proves difficult to actually start that habit and stick to it for the first few days. I didn't have any classes for the day, but on the horizon was the peer review for Competition Law which was due on Wednesday, an assessable workshop for Commercial Dispute Resolution which I had to prepare for by Friday and also some assessed problem questions in my Intellectual Property class due on the following Monday. Busy busy! I cracked on with getting my peer review written before also completing some preparation for the following day of classes. The routine requirement to meet deadlines and complete work gets quite tedious at university sometimes, when we are so often not required to do any substantive work whatsoever, it seems to always arrive all at once. I should be clear, I'm not complaining about student life - it's very enjoyable and very easy I think. Every stereotype about students pretty much rings true, however on the occasions when some real hard work is required it's never fun.

Wednesday brought another day of classes, which was a bit of a nuisance when there was so much work I needed to get on with. Again, they all seemed to be a bit uneventful really, for a number of reasons. I'm sure when I do have work to complete, I often feel like I would rather be at home with a chance to keep working on it rather than be sitting in classes. However, I also haven't found the latest topic we are covering in Intellectual Property as interesting so far; we are covering patents now and I found trade marks to be a lot more engaging and thought-inducing.

On Wednesday night - actually, Thursday morning, around 5am - I got up and watched United again; this time we beat Liverpool 1-0 to restore some kind of normality, which wouldn't last long, although we weren't to know it at the time. It was also an absolutely scorching day on Thursday and I always find myself feeling refreshed and invigorated each morning when I open the blinds to find another day of blue skies and wall-to-wall sunshine. I tweeted, "It's going to be another beautiful day today," before adding, "I love it here." I think that really captures my mood on Thursday - this is a great place and I'm very lucky to be here. It's constantly in my mind to make an effort to take everything in and enjoy every moment. Just shows the difference it  makes to me between United losing 4-1 to City or beating Liverpool 1-0!

Thursday itself saw me make a trip to the library in order to camp out for the day and get some good progress done on my work. I hammered through a large chunk of my Intellectual Property questions and did some good preparation work before the assessable workshop in Commercial Dispute Resolution the following morning. I also went and bought my ticket for the Soccer Society FIFA Tournament, which was being held on Friday afternoon and I genuinely fancied my chances of winning it, even though I hadn't played FIFA at all since leaving home. There was also the small issue of a $100 prize on the line for the winner and since I'm not competitive at all, that wasn't really bothering me and I felt it was more about taking part. Of course, I'm joking, I wanted to know if anyone fancied turning up early for a warm up and some practice games!

On Friday, I got up nice and sharp, had a shower and breakfast and headed into uni to go to my Commercial Dispute Resolution class. Since we were running a mock mediation, where we would have to play roles and follow the process just like it was a real life dispute, a few of the guys turned up fairly smart, with trousers and shirts. It was really warm on Friday, so I arrived wearing shorts and t-shirt and my sunglasses. Awkward. I was certainly glad to see that not everyone had chosen their smart attire and had dressed similarly appropriate for the weather as I had done. Panic over. The mediation process itself went well and I think I made a good contribution; once it was over, my attention quickly turned to the main event of the day - the FIFA Tournament! Priorities right? I was hoping that I would have a great story of how I had turned up and won the $100 however I was beaten 1-0 in the quarter finals and without going into any details, just know that I was cheated out of it. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Onwards. On a side note, the tournament was held at a building near the engineering school on campus, where they have these 'pods' which you can book out, without any cost, and use them for whatever purpose you please. They're supposed to be used for group work and productive things such as brain-storming ideas and the like, so the 'pods' are set up with white boards on every wall, and HDMI connections to large screen TVs in order to allow work to be displayed to the group. It's essentially the perfect place to play FIFA, as this photo will prove.

Saturday could be summed up with one word: procrastination. I had the best intentions of getting the bulk of the remainder of my work done before finishing it off on Sunday and relaxing in the afternoon. However, other things got in the way - like Netflix - and I found myself having hardly done any work at all by the time Saturday night came around. Not a day well spent by any means, although I did have a slight excuse since I did have a banging headache in the early part of the afternoon. Unfortunately it proved to be a total progress-killer and a great reason not to go back to my work. Late on Saturday night there was another United game to look forward to - this part of the season is great since the games are so frequent - fantastic! Rather surprisingly we slumped to another disappointing defeat, this time 2-1 at home to West Brom which was very, very poor. However, I did enjoy a good moan about the game as I spent the second half on FaceTime to Cameron at home; it felt like we were sitting at home in one of our houses watching the game and felt very much like being at home. Sunday was much better in terms of getting some work done and I got the Intellectual Property stuff finished off finally.

Sunday night brought about another "pot luck" where everyone in the flat makes one dish and everything is put in the middle of the table. It's definitely my favourite way to eat since it's dead easy to simply make one dish and make a contribution but then I'll get to experience some brilliant dishes from Singapore or Pakistan that the others have made. I hope they feel the same way about my nouvelle cuisine from Scotland. This particular night, since Khurram was making a spicy mince dish and Claire was making sweet and sour fish with various vegetables, it was decided that I should provide some kind of side to go with each. I made the pasta/rice combination thing which my sister showed me how to cook, which she learned from our friends whilst staying with them in Lyon a few summers ago. It's a really easy thing to make but it's so tasty and did go well with both a curry dish and sweet and sour too. Also, whilst incredibly spicy, the mince that Khurram made was insanely good and I'll definitely make sure I write down the recipe.

I totally over ate at dinner and was totally stuffed, so I went to go and watch some more of Long Way Down which I've been watching on Netflix again, after first watching it on DVD a few years back. Great watch and well recommended, along with the first one - Long Way Round. On Monday, I got up and had a lazy morning, reading some of the latest football news from the weekend and having breakfast. I headed into uni in the afternoon, printed my assignment off in the library and handed it in to the Faculty of Law office. I headed home with some time to kill before the LAST EVER EPISODE of Breaking Bad, which would be on Netflix around 6pm for us here. Claire and Jess suggested we take a walk to Extreme Gelato, which is the place which makes ice cream with nitrous oxide, which sounded like a great idea! We headed down through Chinatown towards Darling Harbour to the small ice cream shop, which permanently seems to have strange, smokey ice pouring out the front - quite strange to see. I decided to go for an adventurous choice and picked a chilli chocolate fudge flavour and it was seriously excellent. Here is a picture of my ice cream, including chilli flakes on top!

I'm going to try something I haven't done on the blog before and post a video which we took at the ice cream place. I have no idea if this will work, but I'll give it a go and see what happens...

That didn't work. Forget that plan. Anyway, I don't think I've actually wrote this in the blog at all before now, but Kerry has now booked her flights to come out here and visit next summer, which is great news! I've sort of been making a conscious effort to remember all the sort of smaller things which I need to remember and show her whilst she is here - not simply things like the Opera House or the Harbour Bridge obviously. I've now started keeping a little list on my phone and I'll keep adding to it in the hope that I have a fine collection of potential things to do when she arrives. I've realised so far that the majority of the items on the list so far are either foods, or places to have food - and Extreme Gelato for ice cream was one of the first! I need to branch out a bit. After heading back to the flat, I watched the last episode of Breaking Bad - I'll need to find a new TV show to get attached to now - before making dinner and sitting down to watch the Notebook, which I only watched because it happened to be on TV! I'm still a bloke and didn't lose any man points for it, ok!

This has been a really long post, almost done now...

Today, I had a quiet morning where I watched some more of  Long Way Down and then headed to the Post Office on campus in order to pick up some post cards and an envelope. I also popped into Coles on my way back to get toothpaste, deodorant, some clothes for the kitchen and grass stain remover for my white Man United shirt - it better come out! I made myself some pasta for lunch since I was going to play football at night with the Soccer Society lads. Tonight however we were playing 11-a-side on a full size pitch against guys from the University of Technology of Sydney and I was really looking forward to my first proper game in ages, even if it was only a friendly. I caught the train from Central to St Peters station and took the short walk down to the pitch. Oh, almost forgot, for some reason there was a huge model railway set up in Central Station tonight, which was cool. No idea why it was there, but I snapped a quick picture.

 
Anyway, I really enjoyed a tough shift up and down the left wing of the pitch during the game - it felt incredibly familiar and made me remember how many weekends I had spent running up and down a touchline. I've discovered that I really miss playing proper football and tonight essentially made up my mind that I want to find a team here and may even get back to it when I return home. The game went well as we won 3-0 and I scored the second with a header from a great cross, before claiming an assist for the third goal too. Good work all round.

Headed home afterwards, made some dinner and sat down to watch the last bit of Long Way Down and write this blog post. I'm going to go to sleep now; it's spring break this week and then I have a reading week the following week, so I'm hoping to try and find a job and maybe do some other interesting things in my time off. Jessica has now managed to get herself a job here and that has spurred me on to try and get something too - I would really like the extra money in order to get the new Man Utd shirt, some new trainers and some nice sunglasses for summer. Good enough motivation, I think. I also need to find a new thing to watch now that Breaking Bad is finished and I would welcome any help or suggestions in solving that problem!

Good night troops,
Jamie