Lianne does Sydney

Lianne had arrived in Sydney on Thursday the 29th in the morning and I went to collect her at the airport with my piece of paper, written in font 50, Lianne Kok. Unfortunately, due to lack of order in the chaotic domestic airport arrival hall, I was unable to predict the exact exit in which Lianne should have appeared from Brisbane. I took my chances and I stood at a random gate with my paper screaming her name while heaps of people were passing by and giving me weird looks. Eventually Lianne called me on the phone asking me where I was, and it had appeared that I stood waiting at the Melbourne exit. Complete failure! But then when I saw her we, very cliché, ran to each other welcoming one other with a big hug! If only they’d broadcasted Hello Goodbye in Australia. In both the bus and in my humble house over coffee, we’d been talking about geeky biomedical science stuff for hours. I really missed talking nerdy!

We had so much to discuss about with our internships abroad covering similar fields of Immunology. There was just too much to say and it was therefore amazing how much and how fast we could actually talk with only a few breathing stops. After this good old exhausting talking session, we decided to go for the classic coastal walk from Clovelly Beach to Bondi Beach and then laid there for a few more hours observing the supply of Sydney beach boys, while patronizing the potential competition. After a bottle of wine we decided to stay in for the night and we had watched a movie.

The next day I took Lianne to the city centre where we did some shopping and exploring. We then bought our stash of alcohol as a preparation for New Year’s Eve, and we went out for some innocent bar hopping in the city on Friday night.

On Saturday the 31^st of December we spend our day time at the beach relaxing, saving our energy for New Year’s Eve. We started drinking some beers and ciders in the evening while getting dressed for the big night. My party music was blasting from my speakers and we were getting into a pleasant vibe. With the taste of Southern Comfort between our lips, we discussed the ups and downs of 2011. Moreover, we started thinking about what we would like to see happen in 2012, and things that could definitely stay behind in 2011, the past. Of course these details aren’t meant for the public eye. We took the bus to Oxford Street around 22:00 P.M. and sang our way to Sydney Harbour. There, the population density was very high. But despite not waiting and guarding your spot for at least ten hours, we still had a pretty fair spot to watch the fireworks from. During the countdown, a big train blocked our view and we had no idea of how much seconds there were still left until some random person just screamed 4…, 3…, ­- and we followed - 2.., 1… Happy New Year!

The fireworks were released and the sky was filled with bright colours. Obviously Sydney has a very big reputation when it comes down to their fireworks on New Year´s Eve. However, it was still rather hard to see the big picture from where we were standing with all the skyscrapers in vicinity. It felt also like we were too much in the middle of the city, instead of a more global view from aside. Nevertheless, it was a very pretty moment. It amazed me to see that they used a lot of timing with releasing the fire arrows. Sometimes the sky was quiet and then out of nowhere several fire work pieces were released at the same time leaving Harbour Bridge and several skyscrapers. After the fireworks show we rushed our way into the city as we were feeling sobering up. That was not part of the plan! Luckily some random persons on the streets provided us the necessary alcohol boost and we were off to do some serious bar hopping. At the first bar we entered, a nice gentleman was kind enough to offer us some drinks which we were very willing to accept. Until at some point he came to us asking if we could buy a certain girl he was flirting with an expensive drink. As that was not in line with our best interests, Lianne smartly suggested ´´Ask the girl herself, she looks like she has a lot of money!´´ This brilliant diversion gave us time to down our glasses and we literally ran out of that bar on the streets to escape! The next bit is rather blurring in my memory, but it comes down to the facts that we had seen a lot of bars, dragged a random lonely guy with us for a bit – my neck is still sore! -, and at some point Lianne finally managed to get us a taxi. It was a very fun night which met up the expectations of how a New Year´s Eve should have been properly celebrated in Sydney.

On Sunday we dragged our hang-overs to the Royal Botanic Garden where we were enjoying the daytime while taming the New Year’s Eve headaches. After our recovery in this beautiful and peaceful environment we made our way to a traditional pub where we scored some decent pub food with huge Schnitzels.

Then we grabbed a coffee, followed by a night-time at the Sydney Harbour Opera Bar drinking a glass of wine, while swaying on Jazz music in between the pretty lights of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House. This was honestly and sincerely a magical moment which belongs under the sentence Living the good Life in Sydney.

We had decided to pay a visit to the Blue Mountains, in order to get some fresh air and to leave the hectic city! The train ride to these World Heritage listed mountains took for 2 hours, though it probably could have made it sooner if it would have speeded up a bit. I thought the so-called Sprinters were slow in the Netherlands.

Once we got to Wenthworth Falls we had to walk a bit to reach the Conservation Hut where our bush­-walking journey would start. We took a route over the National Pass to reach the Wentworth Water Falls, and then headed back over the Overcliff Undercliff route. We started our trip with fresh courage and we were very excited! It soon came apparent that the paths weren’t really easy horizontally to walk on. You really had to look out for every step you took. We took a million steps downwards to reach the valley of the mountains, knowing that we at some point had to go back up again! This bush-walk was rated as easy in my Walking In Australia guide book but we experienced no such thing. We had been walking for 5 hours over steps, slippery stones, mud pools and it was an intensive full body work-out! Though the scenery was very beautiful, with big red mountains (funny cause they’re called Blue Mountains), waterfalls, big trees, bright birds, hot sun, and cool shades. Every time we passed a waterfall the temperature would drop significantly, cooling us down with the water drops falling from mountains high up the sky right on your overheated neck. Lovely!

The last meters of the journey were tough, especially because the orientation signs stating Conservation Hut kept saying thirty minutes. Though they were at least ten minutes walking apart from another! On our way back we even spotted a snake! When we arrived near the train station we saw that our train back to Sydney was just arriving. With our last energy we ran down the stairs and jumped in the train just in time.

We woke up this morning at 5 A.M due to the fucking cockatoo bird mimicking a monkey with ADHD next to my window. Anyway, on this last day of Lianne in Sydney, we pushed our sore legs to walk to Sydney Harbour where we would be enjoying our final drinks together. Thank you Lianne for an amazing time! Hopefully, see you in Brisbane soon!! Click here to see more photo's.