It started with a blown fuse

We just had another busy weekend in Sydney. Yesterday the weather was very bad so we stayed inside a lot. Today was supposed to be worse but it turned out to be a really nice day. No rain and no storm as they had predicted. We spend the afternoon in the Royal Botanical Gardens where the kids spend over an hour to build a 'pretend' castle.

Yesterday, we enjoyed ourselves trying to use as many machines (washing machine, dishwasher, dryer, microwave, bread machine and coffee machine) as possible at the same time. Unfortunately, the electricity system in our house can not really cope with this. The result was a blown fuse. What followed can be seen on the picture. Instead of telling what happened because that's just too easy, I ask everyone to come up with ideas. So, what happened here? That's the question of the day.

Rain, rain

Sydney is a sad place today. It just does not stop raining. Very depressing. A few days ago people told me that they were looking forward to the winter. Not sure why. Especially because the Sydney houses are not build for cold weather which I define as anything below 18 degrees. We have this silly gas heater which is supposed to provide enough warmth for the entire house. Ha, ha. Not really. I think about joining the local fitness club just to be able to make use of their sauna facilities. The weather forecast for the next seven days doesn't look good. More rain... I want to emigrate.

Baby crying room and Andre Rieu

Compared to India, where I was constantly confronted with things that interested or amazed me because I had never seen them before, this does not happen to me a lot in Sydney. Imagine my surprise yesterday when we went to the movies to see 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo' in a small local movie theatre in Roseville, about 20 minutes from our house. This cinema has something I've never seen before: a baby crying room. A special key provides access to a room where you can let your child scream as loud as it wants and see the movie without disturbing anyone. Superb. The room has a hugh window (sound proof I assume) so you can just sit, relax and watch the movie. I'm not sure if parents are allowed to put their kids in the room, lock it and then join the other people in the theatre. Probably not.

It's a funny cinema. The average age of the audience is 65+. Before the start of the movie, they show a commercial for a retirement home. Ha, ha.

On July 19, they have a very special 'live' performance of Dutch artist Andre Rieu 'direct via satellite to a cinema near you'. They have two shows, one at 11 am and the other at 4 pm. Mmm. To play at 11 am Sydney time, means Andre Rieu has to perform at 3 am in Maastricht which is the middle of the night. Interesting.

I read the announcement more carefully and noticed that, at the very end, it said:  'for the enjoyment of the Australian audience the timings have been changed'. Ahhhh. I think it should read instead: 'for the enjoyment of the people in Maastricht the timings have been changed'.

Cycling in Sydney

Today I finally bought a bike. It took me a few months to decide if I really want one here. Sydney is not made for biking. There are too many hills, the roads are too bad, and there are hardly any dedicated cycle ways.

I don't know what made me change my mind but this afternoon we took the car to Padington to buy a bike. I don't regret it. We went down to Rushcutters Bay Park, near Padington. It's a beautiful park with a playground and a cafe (very important). We didn't cycle for very long, I think it was about two kilometers maximum but it was lovely. Julia still fits into a child seat and for Sebastiaan we bought one of these kids bikes which you can fix behind your own bike.

My new bike.

Coffee in the parc.

Pictures of arrival Jessica Watson

Today we decided to drive down to the North Head to see the arrival of Jessica Watson. Expected time of arrival: 11 a.m. We arrived a bit late and had a hard time to find a parking spot. Because of the large number of people who were expected to come, the city had blocked part of the street so we had to walk about two kilometers before we arrived at a viewpoint.

Jessica's is a great sailor but she needs to work on her time management skills. We had to wait for almost three hours before she passed the finish line just past North Head where we were. We were lucky because we came late. Other people got there already at nine in the morning.

There were some television crews and they provided a bit of entertainment. It's funny to see how the media makes up a story. The presenter from Channel 7 told the viewers at home that the spectators didn't mind the long wait and that the children were playing happily. Well, the children were very bored and hungry and not happy at all. 

Around 2 pm the helicopters started making more noise and we could see lot's of boats. One of them - we were told - was the boat of Jessica Watson. But which one? After trying - unsuccesfully - to spot her  we decided to leave and walk back to the car. We will watch television tonight to check if she actually arrived.. 

Sydney prepares for the arrival of Jessica Watson

Sydney prepares for the arrival of Jessica Watson, the youngest person ever to sail around the world. Everyone is exited and you hear it non stop on the news. She is expected to arrive at 11.30 tomorrow morning. Streets will be blocked because the city expects many supporters who want to see Jessica and her boat. She'll be at the Sydney Opera house at 12.30. You can call it a media hype but of course it's a great achievement for such a young girl. This is the link to her blog if you are interested.

I think it's quite typical for Australians to be so exited. It's a sportive event and everyone here likes sports. Tomorrow will be another sunny day in Sydney and it will be great to see all the boats in the Sydney harbor to welcome her.

In Holland there is another girl who wants to sail around the world, Laura Dekker. She is only 14 years old but very determined. End 2009 Laura was placed under state supervision to prevent her from starting her adventure. This must be so frustrating for her.

A Friday morning in Sydney

It's already the end of the week. This morning I had a meeting in North Sydney. To get there it only take me 15 minutes. How convenient! Because CBD is so small and expensive, companies move elsewhere and you see a lot of new business areas which are as attractive as central Sydney. To get from CBD to North Sydney you just pass the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It's as simple as that and the views on the harbour and the Opera House are just as nice.

Of course, you find coffee places on every street corner, also in North Sydney. It's crazy this fascination with coffee. If you want to work in a coffee shop in Sydney, you first you need to follow a Barista training course where you learn about the basics but also about getting the right foam and decorations.

This is a picture of the bus stand in North Sydney. The time tables are not always easy to read.

And the weather forecast? Sunny but on the cold side. Today we have a beautiful blue sky as you can see on this picture.

Mother's day in Sydney

Yesterday we celebrated Mother's Day. My highlight of the day was the awesome breakfast in bed consisting of a honey sandwich and glas of cold water served by my kids at 7 a.m.  Very jummy and a good way to start the day.

It's hard to ignore Mother's Day in Sydney. It seems to be a much bigger event here than in Holland. 

To 'celebrate' we took a ferry trip to Watsons Bay to spend the afternoon there. On our way to the ferry at Circular Quay we passed a few old buildings. Before living here I never realized how historic the city really is. The highrise modern buildings dominate the city but you also see many old buildings like the ones below: 

Watsons bay has a great playground for the kids and from the park you have wonderful view on the city in the distance. We were not the only ones to go to Watsons Bay. It turned out to be a very popular spot for a Mother's Day picnic. This is the queue in front of Doyles Fishermans Wharf on Sunday at 2 p.m. I don't know how long these people had to wait for their take away fish and chips but I would not be surprised if it was over an hour. A nice way to spend Mother's Day..  

Sydney bridge climb

Today we finally climbed the icon of Sydney, the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The weather was great, blue sky, no wind. We had a great time and I think we can now officially call ourselves Aussies.

I organised the bridge climb because of Marcel's birthday. Surprise, surprise! A day with the two of us in Sydney without the kids. Heaven! So what else did we see:

This is this sign of the Glenmore hotel in the Rocks, the area next to the Sydney Harbour bridge. Downstairs it doesn't look very nice but if you walk up the stairs you reach the rooftop terras with great views and excellent food and drinks. It must be a popular place because I saw 'reserved' signs on a few of the tables. From the terras, enjoying a cold beer, you can see the roof of the Sydney opera house and of course the city skyline with the Sydney tower in the back.  

After the climb we went to Kings Cross to do a walking tour with Bounce Walking Tours. Since I arrived here in Sydney I've never been to this part of town and I wanted to go somewhere new. There is tv show in Australia called 'Underbelly' and this tour takes you to the places which feature in this show like the nightclubs and other 'dark places'. Without having seen the show, the tour was very entertaining and I enjoyed walking there. I almost made plans to move to this part of Sydney because it's so lively. This is not exactly the case where we live. Oeps, I forgot that I have two young kids who may not like it here. Colin, our guide, told me that in this part of the city the ratio of dogs to kids is five to one. Interesting. So this is the perfect area to live if you have a dog and you don't like kids. Anyone? 

Night zoo Sydney

In our garden and on the deck we get lots of visitors. Almost every night we see a few possums. They are very curious animals and they just sit there looking at us. In Australia possums are protected animals so they can pretty much do anything they like.

This one was looking at us but just as a I tried to take a picture he took off. He may be back later tonight and then I'll try again.

Flip Flop fashion

I'm on my way to a first meeting for volunteering work at the Biennale of Sydney. I go by bus into town which will take me about 25 minutes. I then need to walk for about half an hour. For the first time I do this the Aussie way. I put my nice shoes in my bag and I'm wearing my white flip flops. They are easy to walk with and this way I don't arrive at the event with sore feet. During the day you see lots of women doing this, especially the ones wearing 8 cm killer heels to work. Feet happy, I'm happy.

The 'pleasures' of renting a home in Sydney

I guess we are quite lucky with our house because it's in a quite area and we have a nice garden and deck for the Aussie barbeques.

Living in a rental home does have it's inconveniences though. You need to accept the house as it is because you can't make any changes. One of the problems I have is with the washing area. The floor in the washing area is very slippery and not straight and the washing machine keeps moving. Last week, when the machine was standing against the wall, I couldn't get any washing done because the machine did not finish the cycle because of an unbalanced load. I now moved it forward and I don't get the message anymore. Hoeree! The only problem is that the machine is now standing a bit awkward in the middle of the washing area. See picture.

Anyway, I decided to keep it this way because at least I get the washing done.

Another problem with a rental home is that you don't know how everything works. It's getting colder now so I keep the door to the garden closed at night. As a result the fire alarm went off everytime I was cooking. Very annoying!! The other day I got so angry (the alarm makes a lot of noise) so I just ripped it from the wall to make it stop. Luckily there were no kids in the room. This worked. At least that's what I thought. Silly me.

The next day a workman knocked on the door instead of using the doorbel. I didn't know why he did that but that didn't really matter.

Later that day I slowly started to realize what I had done. Instead of destroying the fire alarm I had completely destroyed the mechanism for the door bell. To stop the fire alarm from going off, all I needed to do was to take the batteries out. Oeps. So we now don't have a door bell anymore and we have an inspection of our house on May 25. Oeps again.

Queens day in Sydney

For the past few years we celebrated Dutch queensday in Mumbai. You can read more about this here and here.  This is the first time we celebrate it in Sydney. Is it very different? Yes. First of all, we did not get tickets to attend the official celebration organised by the Dutch consulate. They put us on a waiting list. Luckily there was another party after the official consulate event and this is were we went. Instead of the Mumbai expat crowd we are used to, the party was mostly attended by twenty year olds. Of course this did not bother us at all, being so young ourselves. It was a good party with nice and inspiring sing a long music from amongst others Andre Hazes. I bet they did not play this at the consulate party earlier.

Today we went to the Queens day event organized by the Dutch club Neerlandia which is run by the older generation of Dutch people in Sydney. They speak a nice mixture of Dutch and English. It's a real difference with countries like India were you only meet expats who spent a few years in the country and then move on. Here you meet people who built a new life for themselves in Australia. They don't intend to go to back to Holland or move to another country.

Today was a beautiful day with lots of sunshine and nice Dutch food. Everyone was dressed in orange. The kids (and the parents) enjoyed selling toys at the 'vrijmarkt' (free market). As always, you end up buying more stuff then you sell... Sebastiaan and Julia earned six dollars and spent about sixty dollars on new toys. I already know what we will sell at the 'vrijmarkt' next year.