I Love Swimming with North Sydney Masters

I still pinch myself every time I go swimming with the North Sydney Masters because the pool we swim in is in an el primo location right under the Sydney Harbour Bridge and next to Luna Park!

Workouts are Monday, Wednesday and Friday in the evening and on Sunday morning (an extra long 1.5 hour workout). Between spending weeknights researching online for an apartment (which I've since secured a place in Surry Hills) and getting introduced to as many of the Australian press as possible for drinks after work, I haven't been making as many workouts as I'd like but hopefully that'll change soon.

This past Sunday, there was an Aussie BBQ (my first) after practice and thinking it'd be a great opportunity to meet the other swimmers I headed to the pool and my visiting friend Venecia graciously agreed to come along. Between reading her book, enjoying the glorious view and relaxing in the sun, she used my FlipVideo to video me swimming at the North Sydney Council Pool (fun fact: it's the pool with the most world records, but as it's a salt water pool some swimming organization said that the extra buoyancy from the salt water eliminated it from being a qualified competitive pool).

Aside from the spectacular view, a couple of other interesting facts.

* Swimmers swim clockwise down the left hand side of the lane

* For masters, they take two lanes and make it three lanes separated by a thin piece of rope so it's very tricky to stay in a straight line (no lane markers or black lines at the bottom of the pool to follow).

* It's not a good idea to shave your legs right before swimming, the salt is pretty strong

* Australian swimmers are very fast!

* They have an open water swim coach, so maybe I'll finally figure out how to sight the buoys in the open water

First Ferry Ride

The ferry is a very picturesque way to travel around Sydney - beautiful views of the Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House as we headed to Circular Quay to first have drinks at The Australian (one of the oldest pubs) and then on to the concert hall at the Opera House where we listened to Greek pop artist Eleftheria Arvanitaki rock the house.

Call out to Sam: This is Venecia's Dream Home :)

While on Manly Beach, Venecia spotted her dream home (by means of this blog post we're communicating this to her husband Sam) and right next door was a beautiful Monet-waterlily blue house with floor to ceiling windows that must have spectacular views!

My First Visitor! Checking out Manly Beach

I'm so excited! This past weekend I hosted my very first visitor! My friend Venecia flew out from San Francisco and arrived at my temporary apartment at around 8:30 a.m. in the morning. With the objective of staying on the go to avoid jet lag, we decided to check out Manly Beach.

April 25, 2009 is ANZAC Day which is an Australian and New Zealand holiday to honour members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC). That morning I went to see a parade of those who had served in the Australian military and was very impressed with the liveliness of the marching bands, the cheering crowds and generations of men and women - young and old - marching through downtown Sydney.

For lunch I met up with a friend of a friend, Andrew and his partner Jaden who took me to this amazing place for dim sum (or as the Australians call it "yum cha") in Hay Market. I was glad to find a place that had good dim sum (surprisingly it was in a big shopping mall, called "Grand Palace" I think) because the week prior I had dinner in Chinatown and was very, very disappointed (I could have prepared it better and for the friends who know my skills in the kitchen it's not saying a lot).

Later that evening I participated in another ANZAC Day tradition which involves gambling (which ordinarily is not allowed, except on this one day of the year). Called "Two-up", it's a simple game played in pubs and requires you to find someone to bet heads or tails against you and then the two coins are flipped and both must either be heads or tails for someone to win.

While it sounds simple, it's actually quite exciting and can entertain adults for hours on end and really empty your pockets. My average bet was $5-$10 and my record was 2 wins and 3 losses. Amazingly, my 3 losses was against this guy who all afternoon/evening was losing (meaning he only won against me) --- I kept playing him because at some point I thought I'd win!

To wrap up the evening I joined Annette (work colleague) and her husband Andy for dinner and then on to a comedy show with Steve Coogan a famous comedian from the UK (althought until that evening I had never heard of him). His humor was wry and sharply edged.

The photo above is of a bag of cookies I saw at the grocery store. Looking for the full ANZAC experience I thought I'd give them a try. They were hard, biscuit cookies with a buttery taste :)

Glow in the Dark Pine Cone for AUS$470

Ever wonder if a pine cone treated with Gamma 25 could light up a whole Christmas tree?

If I had AUD$470 to spare and thought a radiation-infused ornament on the Christmas tree wouldn't scare away Santa, I might have let the Australia Quarantine Office help me with this little experiment...

But I decided to cut my losses, pay $80 to destroy the "one piece pine cone xmas ornament" and save the planet all at the same time.

I have to hand it to the Australian Quarantine office, they are very efficient. They spotted the single pine cone xmas decoration that was in my shipment which as a plant/living organism had the potential of bringing in bugs/diseases which in all seriousness is a threat to Australia.

Yet am I wrong to think that if in my whole shipment of 2.5 containers, only one pine cone was qurantined- isn't it a bit extreme to say I either had to pay $470 to have it treated or $80 to have it destroyed? Where do these dollar amounts come from? Maybe $40 to toss the first item (a small pine cone) and $80 if they found more than one item?

Check out the letter from the shipping company alerting me of my Australian Quarantine violation... and imagine my first thought when I read it, "$80 to toss the pine cone?"

Lunch at the "Cisco Cafeteria"

Never one to bring lunch to work whether in the US or abroad, I've been going to the "Cisco Cafeteria" which effectively is the food court of the mall next door to the Cisco North Sydney Office.

It's been about two weeks and already I'm getting a bit tired of the choices. I miss the Bon Appetit "Health Connections" meals that would be different every day and healthy (under 600 calories with less than 30% of calories from fat).

I was also beginning to crave decent sushi until Cisco colleague Ben Dawson took me to this great Japanese sushi restaurant right up the street!

And then a few days later I started branching out from the mall next door and I discovered two other food courts down the street! Yeah, now I have many more choices for lunch!

Paddington Market - April 18, 2009

While I have a temporary place to stay in Mosman, I'm on the hunt for a permanent apartment. The consensus from everyone seems to be that Paddington is the place for young, hip, single professionals.


As I walked around Paddington I found this all to be correct, plus more! Paddington is also very fashionable and trendy and there are many wonderful boutiques, restaurants and bars too!


For those of you who are shoe fashionistas, you'll love this! There's a Website that describes the towns in Sydney by the type of shoe and according to CityHobo if Paddington were a shoe it would be a "Jimmy Choo"


After my exhausted feet could walk no more (no, was not wearing Jimmy Choo but wasn't wearing a very practical walking shoe either), I finally ended up at Paddington Market on Oxford Street which takes places every Saturday.