A Couple of Tra La Las

Finally my pictures from my photo shoot!!

Just a few to give you the jist :)

They were doing some sky writing that we could see from the park where we were and it started out saying “Are you going 2….” and I thought it might be a wedding proposal (because I´m hopelessly romantic) but instead it ended up saying “Are you going 2 heaven? How? Trust Christ”… I couldn´t believe it. I didn´t think it was even allowed to put something so religious out there for everyone to see. And by this time the sun was setting so everyone was outside looking toward the sky for the fireworks and that is the message they saw. I wonder which organization was paying to have them write that up there..

We had SO much food and of course a lot of alcohol as well. It WAS New Years Eve after all. The unfortunate thing was that, even though I had managed to take work off that night from the bar, we were having an event the next day and I had to work the event. I may or may not have had a large hangover :/ not too fun.

NYE

We spent New Years Eve in the sunshine in a park in Vaucluse, which is the part of Sydney where Leonardo DiCaprio has a house. We spent the entire day and night there and it had a great view of the city and the harbor bridge. Unfortunately for me, i must not have charged my camera batteries long enough because my camera shut off midway through the first fireworks show :( Annoying, right? You live and you learn though.

Christmas in Oz

Sorrrrrry for not updating in so long! The Christmas season is a busy time and even though I am away from family and normal life, I still have been run off my feet this Christmas.

From the beginning,

I worked the 23rd and 24th at the bar, which was fine because some of the people at the bar have sort of become part of my family anyway. I did think about the family dinner my real family was going to sit down for on Christmas Eve and it made me a bit sad but I know they are all thinking of me and that I´d be there in spirit.

Christmas Eve: I spent the entire morning baking cookies for everyone for Christmas. I was invited to a party on Christmas Day so I was also making cookies for them. I ended up going a bit overboard with 5 dozen cookies… its the 30th and we still haven´t finished them! I made sugar cookies in the shape of stars, peanut butter blossoms (with the hershey kiss) and no bake oatmeal cookies, which are essentially my childhood wrapped up in a cookie. Trying to find cookie cutters here is like trying to find two matching socks in Brie´s sock drawer… IMPOSSIBLE! I was excited to bake santas and reindeer and candy cane shaped cookies but I was sorely disappointed when I could only find stars. As if stars are the only thing that they could think of to represent Christmas. I think that I´ve realized I like Christmas a lot more than I thought I did. I guess I just didn´t appreciate access to all things Christmas until it was no longer available.

After baking all day, I went to get a drink before work with Julie and our friend Oceane. We stopped by St Marys Cathedral where they were having a little Christmas festival of sorts and its also where the above pictures were taken. I was already at work when they put on this light show but they are actually projecting all of these pictures straight onto the front of the Church. I think its pretty common here to do that because I´ve seen it done on the Opera House and also the Town Hall.

Christmas Day: I went to our friend Jane´s house for a Christmas lunch and a gift exchange. I “picked” a name out of a hat and got this guy who I had never met. Jane´s mom is an awesome lady and part of what they do and how they live is that they house foreign exchange students. At the moment they have 2, one guy from Russia and the other from Korea. I had Daniel for our secret santa (which they just call “Kris Kringle” here) and I got him a beach towel of the Australian flag and some other random funny things. He looked like he really loved it, which was exciting :) He got me this beauuuutiful fan. Its a funny thing, buying presents for someone you don´t know. In many ways it was easier than buying a present for someone you do know! We ate and drank way too much but laughed a lot and for a second, it did sort of feel like I was with family.

And a few more “Caroline” photos.

I loved the symmetry of the stone wall with the benches. It was right at a lookout point so everyone is facing the mountains, taking pictures and I have my back to the mountains, taking a picture of a wall.

Also, I love the trees here in Australia. They are incredible!

“The Blue Mountains are so named because, from Sydney, they look blue. They are clad in vast forests of eucalypts (commonly called gum trees), which in the hot sun discharge a fine mist of eucalyptus oil from their leaves. The mist refracts light, which makes the haze look blue at a distance.” source

Glamor shots!

These are the things that I take pictures of while everyone else is taking pictures of the mountains.

Typical Caroline :)

The climb.