I beg your pardon............I never promised you a rose garden

Hello and Happy New Year!!

Well yet again we've had one hell of a fortnight here in Sydney. With everything shut down we can't believe what we've been able to sort out, and aside from that its been a good time to party!

We arrived in Sydney on the 19th, as soon as we'd checked into the hostel we headed for the opera house. What an amazing place, just spectactular, right next door is the harbour bridge and the whole area around these two sights is gorgeous, lots of little cafes, bars and restaurants, the harbour is one of our favourite places. Sydney is a massive city so it took a few days to get our bearings and have a good look around.

Christmas was around the corner and we weren't feeling Christmassy at all .as its not celebrated as much over here as at home so we decided to go to a Christmas concert. We went into the opera house to take a look at what was on and it was a toss up between Rolf Harris and Christmas Opera, being the flashpackers we are we booked two seats to the opera! It was great, we even joined in when hark the herald came on and rich was belting out away in manger.....

Some of our friends had made it to sydney to so we met up with them and did the Bondi beach to Coogee Beach walk.

Christmas eve was fun, we met up with some friends had a few drinks and games of pool and ended the night at midnight mass to see in christmas with everyone!! Not exactly the stamford church where you can roll up after a few so we left half way through, it had been going for an hour....

Christmas day was awesome, we went to Bondi beach with our friends - all of which had christmas hats to get into the spirit. There were DJ's, lots of drinks, and we had a ball. Queues were huge for the bars so we were glad we'd nipped into the disabled toilets before we got to the beach and downed a bottle of wine!! Soz Wino's!!!!!

Inbetween Christmas and New Year was when we really started looking for jobs and flats. Everything was closed down over the holidays but we managed to view 5 places and settled on a great little flat in the city centre overlooking a park and the city itself.

Its a great little place, a one bedroom little studio, mint kitchen and bathroom all pretty new and a living room which is awesome, the bedroom is in the living room............the bed comes out of the wall!! we've got our own table and chairs and in the mornings we wake up to the city skyline and the harbour bridge, just fab!! Its somewhere to call home for a few months and it really does feel like home, we are so happy here, the building we live in has a mini gym downstairs so we've been going for runs on the treadmill, the rooftop looks right onto the opera house and at night as the sunsets its great to watch.

New Years Eve was the best one we've ever had, some friends and us went on a boat on the harbour to watch to the fireworks, have a few drinks and boogie the night away. The best money we have spent in 9 months away, it just blew us away, even the boat was great!! The fireworks were like nothing we have seen, it was a simulated thunderstorm so there was firework rain and sunshine and lightning, they lasted for 20mins.

So looks like we'll be settling down here for a few months and extending our trip!!!! As Cilla would say Suprise Suprise! I have landed a great job at Nestle, similar role to what I was doing in York, looking after brands like Aero etc. Rich has a few irons in the fire but everything is just reopening again after Christmas and New Year.

Happy New Year to you all and thanks for the lovely messages we recieved

Can you guess what it is yet?

Well the answer was Rich being a DJ on the WWOFFing farm we went to ( no houses but they had some decks!!!!)

All our Love

Team RA

XXXXXXXXXX