Cheers 2010.
For some reason my mates around here have dubbed me “Mom.” Maybe they think I have the answers to everything, or that I have a Mary Poppins bag, or can make everyone feel better. If I can convince them of this, I’m all for it. When I arrived at Sydney airport on the morning of New Years Eve, I had the best welcome ever. I hadn’t seen Jackie since before Christmas, and her and her mate we were crashing with came to pick me up. I walked out to find a mass of people with eager then disappointed faces when they realized I wasn’t their pick-up. I thought I saw Jackie’s head pop up amongst them, did a double-take, then saw her holding up a sign that said “MOM” with a big cheesy grin. It was awesome. I had missed my Gypsy Jackie.
Priceless reunion.
We had a fairly out of character New Years for the two of us. But I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. We went to the Annie Leibovitz exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, had coffee, and sat by the pool outside her mate’s flat. We had planned to go out in the evening, then go hit up the fireworks. Instead we made dinner, had champagne and watched Gilmore Girls. Around 8.30pm, we reminded ourselves where we were at, kicked ourselves into gear, and strolled on down to the waterfront. NYE here is similar to NYC, in the fact that people perch FAR too early for their own good. At least in Sydney it’s warm. But then you get sunburnt, dehydrated, or drunk. Or all three. The recommendation for us was to go down to Lavender Bay and McMahon’s Point. We walked down there to find the area closed off to any more people. Fair enough. We decided to muck about the back streets to see if we could find a semi-decent spot, contemplated crashing a few house parties we passed, and then lucked out finding ourselves back at the Bay, walked in, and sat ourselves down in wait. Our view? The bridge, the Opera House lit up behind it, the skyline, and enough of a view to see the other two points of fireworks. Approved! The 2 hours we still had to kill, we spent it watching people (especially entertaining were the 15 year old girls being escorted out by the police for being drunk) and being goobs trying to sync up our ipod listening to each other. The fireworks were pretty epic. Especially over the bridge.
Epic as.
New Years Day we chilled out, went to Fresh Water Beach, out past Manly, and had a yummy Thai dinner over more Gilmore Girls. What a good end to a new beginning.
