Week 51: The End

My last week in Australia kicked off in a similar way to many of the rest, doing some work, hopefully work that I am getting paid for! Looking at applying a wave exposure model to rock platforms in the Illawarra region. The rest of the day was spent sorting bits and bobs out with a view of starting to pack. In the evening we rearranged my unit and played an awesome game called True American, the floor is lava and you go from there. We didn’t get too wild but it was still great fun.

Tuesday, me, Jamie and Kim decided to head up to Sydney for the last time for me and Kim. We headed off for a 9am train and was in Sydney for 10.30am. We spent the day walking around the city, heading to circular quay and the opera house first. We took some snaps and came across a massive line which we found out was for a Games of Thrones exhibition, unfortunately we didn’t have enough time to queue. We walked over to the bridge and went through the rocks… although they were closed K (a recurring theme of the day). After this we headed up to look in some outdoors shops and went up to Paddy’s markets which were also closedK. So my souvenir shopping did not go as smoothly as I had wanted. We stopped off at a pub and got a jug of beer while we waited for the train. 

All tuckered out :P

By the time we got back I was heading off to my last touch game. We were playing a Div 1 team and got trounced despite having more players. They were seriously good. Personally I went out on a bit of a high, I picked the ball up about 5m from my try line and sprinted the length of the pitch for a try! Very chuffed! The evening was relatively quiet because we had an early start on Wednesday.

After mistakingly getting up at 4.50am instead of 5.50am I met Kim and Nina to walk down to see the sunrise over the ocean for the last time. It was absolutely stunning and I hope the photos do it justice. We even managed a quick dip which was refreshing, but still not freezing. 

I said some more goodbyes in the morning and spent some time packing up. A group of us from KB headed down to town for a few bits and pieces. We grabbed some food down there and I had the most amazing strawberry and Nutella crepe… perhaps the best crepe I have ever had. 

We hit some shops, I bought a lot of tim tams and then headed back. Upon arriving at Uni we were invited to UniBar so we headed down there and had a really great time just chatting with a few peeps. I spent more time packing in the evening and cracked open a bottle of wine for my last night. We just chilled around KB chatting and saying goodbyes to people. Somehow I managed to stay awake to watch a movie til 2am. Just a casual 21 hour day K and its not like I was going to get much more.

My last full day kicked off by saying a goodbye L. I spent the rest of the morning packing and then headed to uni for a meeting to show how the GREMO model works for a lecturer. 

I said my goodbyes to some people in my department and came back for lunch. We headed off to the beach for a chill session, but didn’t go for a swim as everything was packed lol. It was great fun just chilling out down there with seriously cool people. By the time we were back it was my time to leave.

 So 5pm I left KB to embark on a very long journey home. I was dropped off at the station and said some very teary goodbyes to Jamie and Kim. I probably got some funny looks on the train but I wasn’t bothered. My first destination was to Sutherland to meet up with my global buddy Sarah for dinner. We headed to a cool pub and had some delicious chicken shnitty, it was good having a catch up. 

We stopped off for me to say bye to her family because they have been so great to me whilst being away, they have treated me like an adopted son and I am so appreciative. My flight was to leave at 6am, which meant checking in at 3am and public transport doesn’t run at that time so I was dropped off at the airport at 10pm the night before and chilled in the airport waiting area for 5 hours. It was nice and peaceful and I got lots of sleep….. NOT! Maintenance decided to rock up and build a partition wall making a racked with drills and that then to top it off they started testing the alarm system. It’s safe to say I just sat there and watched a lot of How I Met Your Mother. 3am came around and I headed up to check in… whilst in the queue I had a MAJOR panic about the weights of my bags. So as far as I was aware I was allowed 30kg checked and 7kg cabin, but they had screens telling a whole different story. So the 5 minutes I was panicing about having to repack and chuck out a heap of stuff. But once I got to the counter there were no problems at all. Security didn’t open til 4am so I sat around for a bit and then headed down to my gate. I wandered around a bit there before boarding for my flight. Somehow I managed to get an aisle seat with nobody next to me. Talk about good luck! Although that luck quickly changed when the captain comes over the tannoy saying:

“we have ice on the wings so will have to wait until the sun rises to melt it off”

A very strange announcement, especially when the outside temperature was 8 degrees according to the screens. So we sat on the plane for about an hour before departing. Eventually we did get on our way. During the flight I have watched a few movies and tv shows, as expected the food had been really good. I have really tried to sleep but I have no managed more than a minute or two micro-naps. For some reason my body doesn’t want to let me sleep if im not lying down. Because of the date 4th July, I thought it would be appropriate to watch the movie Independence Day and few other movies. I arrived to Dubai a bit late to 45 degree heat... ouch. I made a quick dash across the airport to my connecting flight to Heathrow and made it with a bit of time to spare. I enjoyed some more red label and coke for this flight and watched the Avengers. By this time my ears were hurting having to have headphones on all the time :|. I also played a lot of the game 2048 which some of you may know lol. It was eventually time to land and customs was pretty quick with my E-passport thingy mabob. I decided to skip duty free and headed straight out of departures. I was greeted by mum, dad and michael :). 

It was great to be back with my family! From here we made the 1hr or so journey back home to Dunstable. It was an extremely weird feeling being back home, it  felt so familiar but so different at the same time. So that was my journey home. I worked out that I was awake for 48 hours straight and it felt like it! I think lots of sleep over this weekend are definitely in order. Its hard to comprehend that that is my Australian adventure over and done with, perhaps it will sink in soon. 

Week 50: The End is Nigh!

Ill upload more photos when they get published on fb from friends. Unfortunately a few photos from my phone decided not to save :|.

I kicked off the week in such adventurous fashion by doing some work for a lecturer. Crazy I know! Tuesday followed in a similar vein and unfortunately the weather turned a bit foul and touch was cancelled due to a severe weather warning. Instead of playing we got a group touch photo and headed off for tacos at Amigos! They were as great as ever and the tequila was pretty good aswell. Once I returned I headed over to a friends flat for some carry on's.

I did some more work on wednesday and headed off for a graduation party pre-drinks before heading out to the grand. Thursday was an unsurprisingly slow start although I did manage a morning jog. We celebrated my flatmates birthday with a multi-coloured birthday cake which was delicious! KB also hosted a rubix cube party, so we all dressed in the colours of the rubix cude and tried to swap clothes to become 1 colour, I ended up going for yellow but nobody was wearing yellow trousers. We had some carry on's before I stayed up to watch some more of the world cup.

Friday was another slow start, waking up at 12, I  was up til 5am for the football! We went out in the evening for some awesome cocktails, I had some great amaretto cocktails yum. After a brief fire alarm at 10.30pm I hit the hay.

The weekend continues in a similar fashion, a lazy start, I went for a food shop before we had a big blow out for everyone who was leaving. We played some awesome games and things got pretty emosh having to say goodbyes to such great people and im sure the alcohol didn't help. We left kb for a UV houseparty which was pretty busy so I decided to come back to watch the Brazil match and because of extra time I dont think I got to bed til 5.30am.

The weekend ended with some more sad goodbyes and I cleaned up the apartment a bit. We were going to play True American in the evening but everyone was super tired and not feeling it at all so we just had some yarns.

Week 49: END OF EXAMS!

Monday was spent being studious, preparing for my last remote sensing exam. My exams went relatively well on Tuesday morning. I luckily checked my exams time and seat at 8.30 and realised my exam was at 9.00 and not 9.30 as I thought. After my exams I headed over to Unibar with some people from my course. We had some food, drinks and played a few games of pool! I picked up some thai food on the way home and watch some of the world cup. During the evening we played touch and apparently drew... we thought we had lost but hey. Upon returning to KB we put Sherlock number 2 on.

Wednesday I headed down to the beach after a lie in. I had a swim and enjoyed a walk up the beach. In the evening we got ready for the second State of Origin match. If you read a few weeks ago we had game 1 which NSW somehow won. The first half was a bit of a stinker with all the players throwing their handbags at each other but the second half really got going and we were on the edge of our seats. NSW grabbed a try late on and managed to hold on for a historic victory. The night of sport was not over yet. We stayed up to watch the Aus soccer match against Netherlands. There was a good 30 mins where I though the Socceroos were going to do the inevitable and beat the Netherlands but alas 2 goals later Australia were dumped out of the world cup. What a goal by Timmy Cahill though!

I took the opportunity of no exams to have a lie in and managed to get into Uni to show my wave exposure model GREMO to some visitors to Uni. In the afternoon I worked on another application for work, fingers crossed eh!  On friday I went in for a meeting at Uni and then headed off on the train to Sydney. I met up with a UEA friend and we headed out for Sushi dinner. I tried eel and octopus puff, they were... interesting to say the least. We had a walk around the Winter Festival in Darling Harbour and stopped off for a few drinks in a bar overlooking Darling Harbour. I then headed off to meet up with my global buddy in Bungalow 8, I said to myself I would never be that guy on the dancefloor with a backpack on but I was for a brief period. I met some folks from the Navy, you know as you do, before heading back to Sutherland to crash.

Who is this kid?!

Breakfast came in the form of Taco's, classic student! I managed to scab a lift to the station and headed back in to Sydney to meet up with Evan, who I met in NZ. I showed him and his gf around Darling Harbour, Circular Quay, the Rocks, and grabbed a delicious gourmet wrap for lunch. We then headed up the Sky Tower and got stunning views across Sydney in glorious sunshine. I had just enough time to show them Paddy's markets before jumping on the train back.

The week ended with a lunchtime trip to San Churro with a few pees, I destroyed a lovely sundae. After this we headed over to shellharbour for a trip and wandered around the shops. We only bought a bit of grog and by this time it was gone 5pm. The evening was spent pretty chilled out as per usual :).

Week 48: The torture of revision

Monday morning I made a job down to sell my board and got a decent price from it off Gum Tree. Whilst I was down there I decided to go for a cool dip in the ocean. The rest of the day was spent revising and watching Game of Thrones. I cannot for the life of me remember what I did on tuesday, I assume I spent the day revising. In the evening we had our weekly touch game, somehow we won 10-6 :), it was a great team effort and I even managed to grab a try.

Wednesday rolled around and I spent the morning studying, then gave an explanation of my independent project with the Wave Exposure Model GREMO to some visitors to the uni. I decided to have a break from the study for and went to a guest lecture, luckily for me some sandwiches appeared... YUM! We had a group photo at KB of most of the residents and then I was invited by Jamie to cardiobox. I died. By the time I was back my arms were shaking and so weak. Thursday passed in a haze of revision.

Friday came around and guess what IT WAS THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD CUP! The Brazil 2014 World Cup :). I got up at 6am for the opening match and it was a corker. This championship begins with me in Australia and by the final end I will be back in the UK and will be have been home for 10 days! The rest of friday was spent studying and then went to fitness friday at KB. I absolutely died, my abs were killing from cardio box and we did 495 or so sit ups on top of that :| ouch! Saturday morning was spent studying and I had my first exam at 1.30, fluvial geomorphology. It went fairly well :). In the evening we watched The Grand Budapest, it was a very strange film but pretty good actually.

Sunday morning I awoke at 5am to watch a shock Costa Rica win over Uruguay then an England loss at the hands of Italy. I began to study after this and had the Japan v Ivory Coast match on in the background. In the afternoon we made a trip to leisure coast and woolworths. Then I spent the rest of the day study... fun!

Week 47: End of session

The beginning of the week once again started with finishing off my assignments and project, oh very exciting I know. Tuesday night was footy night but our opponents didn't turn up so we got an automatic victory. I submitted my assignments on wednesday and headed off for Uni Trivia. We somehow managed to come second! Wednesday night was a friends birthday and we had double denim themed pre-drinks and had a strange night out in hostage and got the early bus home.

Thursday was spent pretty chilled out, I spend ages walking around town trying to find some dress shoes to buy. I eventually found a lovely pair... they are so shiny!

I spent the arvo doing a practise pack of my big bag and I am on the verge of my weight limit. In the evening we put on sherlock, the movie this time, so good! Friday was pretty chilled out as well, I managed to go out for a run. It appears my chest still hasnt recovered from being ill, my times were a bit slow but hey. By the time I got back I dressed up ready for formal. We got transport to the Portofino Club which was decorated really well! We had a 3 course meal with drinks included, an awesome photo booth and had a great time chatting to everyone.

Saturday was a slow starter but we made it down to the beach for a lovely swim in the sun. In the evening we headed out to the Patch for a friends 21st. We had some great nibbles and cheap drinks... there were some interesting speeches, and the night descended from there for a number of people (but not me). Sunday was another slow burner and I watched a few footy matched and some food shopping. The exciting life I lead.