That's it. We're moving to Antarctica.
Well yesterday was our first day back in Sydney and my oh my what a welcome we got. Walked in on the end of a power outage to our block that must have been going for days because the fridge was leaking its contents onto the floor and making the whole flat reek. And we are meatatarians so there was blood dripping from the freezer and making a puddle on the tiles. Looked as if someone had been murdered in there. Will check for bodies just in case.
We think our place must have been hit by lightning or something because our phone also won't work...just won't connect anymore. Thankfully the modem seems OK (that was a big phew for a blogger!). We lost every bit of food we had, but couldn't replenish our sources as, yep you guessed it, it was New Year's Day so most of the shops were shut. Like that wasn't enough Mother Nature kindly decided to throw us a doozy - Sydney city temps got up to 44.2 degs C in the city (that's 105.5 for you Farenheit folk). The weather dudes say that this was because strong winds were coming in from the Central Australian desert. I hope this never happens again. It got to 41 on our balcony and 36 in the flat. We shut ourselves in the bedroom with a bunch of Lost DVDs (our eternal thanks to Carla and Dave!), the few bits of food we could find at the local corner store and a portable air conditioner (and rang out for pizza which was a challenge with no phone - haha), but even that only gave us a bearable 31 degrees. It's funny now to think how we thought we were suffering in 35 in Queensland! We had a brief moment of insanity where we thought it might be a good idea to seek refuge at the cinema. We hopped on the scoots to go down there but the wind was so much hotter at 60 kmph - it was like climbing into a too hot hot-tub and putting your head under for 5 minutes. Seriously, I thought my eyes were going to melt. And the trip was wasted too - when we got to the cinema it was stacked to the rafters. People were still lining up to buy tickets for the movie that had started 15 minutes before so we gave up on that idea. This morning we woke up to 20 degs and gentle rain and no temperature forecast above 27 for the rest of the week. Nature's just feeling a little moody I think - though it seems things are only get worse as temperatures warm each year.
Anyway, on a happier note, and going back to the previous evening, we had a nice New Year's Eve. We went to a party at a friend's place who had this as the view from his balcony:
It's right opposite Luna Park on Sydney Harbour. Excuse the dodgy wobble. My photography skills have gotten even worse with the new camera as I'm not used to it yet - it is so fabulously teeny weeny that my gumby hands can't seem to grab it! Here's a much more professional pic of the Harbour Bridge fireworks from CBC World News:
Anyway, still to come is the Christmas wrap-up - I'll get to that in stages over the next couple of days.
We think our place must have been hit by lightning or something because our phone also won't work...just won't connect anymore. Thankfully the modem seems OK (that was a big phew for a blogger!). We lost every bit of food we had, but couldn't replenish our sources as, yep you guessed it, it was New Year's Day so most of the shops were shut. Like that wasn't enough Mother Nature kindly decided to throw us a doozy - Sydney city temps got up to 44.2 degs C in the city (that's 105.5 for you Farenheit folk). The weather dudes say that this was because strong winds were coming in from the Central Australian desert. I hope this never happens again. It got to 41 on our balcony and 36 in the flat. We shut ourselves in the bedroom with a bunch of Lost DVDs (our eternal thanks to Carla and Dave!), the few bits of food we could find at the local corner store and a portable air conditioner (and rang out for pizza which was a challenge with no phone - haha), but even that only gave us a bearable 31 degrees. It's funny now to think how we thought we were suffering in 35 in Queensland! We had a brief moment of insanity where we thought it might be a good idea to seek refuge at the cinema. We hopped on the scoots to go down there but the wind was so much hotter at 60 kmph - it was like climbing into a too hot hot-tub and putting your head under for 5 minutes. Seriously, I thought my eyes were going to melt. And the trip was wasted too - when we got to the cinema it was stacked to the rafters. People were still lining up to buy tickets for the movie that had started 15 minutes before so we gave up on that idea. This morning we woke up to 20 degs and gentle rain and no temperature forecast above 27 for the rest of the week. Nature's just feeling a little moody I think - though it seems things are only get worse as temperatures warm each year.
Anyway, on a happier note, and going back to the previous evening, we had a nice New Year's Eve. We went to a party at a friend's place who had this as the view from his balcony:
It's right opposite Luna Park on Sydney Harbour. Excuse the dodgy wobble. My photography skills have gotten even worse with the new camera as I'm not used to it yet - it is so fabulously teeny weeny that my gumby hands can't seem to grab it! Here's a much more professional pic of the Harbour Bridge fireworks from CBC World News:
Anyway, still to come is the Christmas wrap-up - I'll get to that in stages over the next couple of days.
posted by Rebecca at 8:20 am
4 Comments:
So how many Lost episodes did you watch?? Fess up - you watched them all didn't you?? :)
tsk tsk. I knew those scooters would make you forget totally about sydney's wonderful public transport system. My dad and I caught some lovely gentle sea breezes on a ferry trip to Circular Quay on NY Day. A short wander along the quay, we entered the divine cool of the less-busy-than-usual Dendy Opera Quays. We skipped Manly and Cremorne cinemas because they are suburban and I figured the masses would be seeking out the air con. But of course the city was dead as. Sorry to hear about the blood dripping on your floor though, that's gross.
hmmm...let's not forget that the whole reason we got scooters is because the sydney transport system is in fact so terrible!!! you can't get a bus from my area to save yourself (i'm afraid i do not have the luck of being close enough to take the ferry without getting a bus there first, and therein lies the problem!). i was getting into work up to 45 mins late most days because 2 or 3 scheduled buses in a row would just not turn up.
See this is the problem with blogging. "wonderful" in my comment above was completely sarcastic. We need to invent one of those smiley face thingies to indicate 'oozing with sarcasm'...any ideas? Will workshop next week when I return to non-holiday mode. And you know I would never condone tardy arrival at work, so I do approve of your use of the scooters.
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