Heading home!

FINALLY!! I am in the airport and heading home! It wasn't official until this moment. First, I was supposed to come home last Friday....then I decided to stay until Monday to enjoy the weekend in Sydney (which I really did - Lane and Manuela and I went up to the beach house of the Director on our project and we spent the weekend laying on towels, in the ocean, reading magazines and drinking wine). Then it was going to be Thursday morning. And now here we are Friday morning and I am all checked in, bags are gone, and there's no chance of changing our minds again!!!

I'm going back to Toronto and taking about 6 weeks off work for a bit of a staycation. Very very very excited to see everyone again and get the last bits of summer! I desperately need a tan (and a diet and a detox!)

Bye for now!

Pictures!

Good news! Lane sent me his pictures from the last 2 months! Below are some of my favourites. It was another good weekend this past weekend in Sydney - more of the usual (enjoying the nightlife and spending days recovering and strolling around outside, with a bit of shopping and work thrown in). Gearing up for a very busy week at work this week, and getting ready to come back home!!!

This one is from way back - at the Opera House Bar (the first time, of 5 or 6)

And this is from the monorail day. We all look about as good as we feel.The guy in the hat was not with us. It was just quite cozy.

Fantastic drinks on the Manuela-organised night out! Liquid nitrogen theme.

Amanda's visit and our Bondi-Coogee walk (weekend formerly known as my birthday weekend)

My birthday party! We didn't seem to get a group shot though! This is as close as I have!

Birthday day - walking across the bridge (not on top)

Out for a drink this weekend

Birthday Weekend!

It must be the end of a six-month trip...I have become a total delinquent at posting blogs! 

Last weekend was "the weekend formerly known as my birthday" - after talking about birthday weekend plans for weeks I became embarrassed about the build-up so had to rename the weekend. Amanda flew in from Brisbane Friday night and Lane's friend, Dustin, was (still is) in town from Hong Kong, and Manuela and Neeharika (from my team) rounded out the little party group! 

Friday night we had a fantastic dinner and then headed to the casino to the duelling piano bar and to see a cover band. (And to enable Lane's gambling problem, except this time he won $500 so it wasn't so much of a problem.) 

Saturday we did the Bondi - Coogee walk (again - this time it was even more beautiful), followed by a nap and another fantastic dinner (Eastern European organised by our resident Romanian). We were all beyond stuffed but forced down a round of desserts, and I even had a candle to blow out. At this point the glowstick bracelets came out (round 2) and we headed out for the evening. Highlights were a Spice Girls mash-up, preceded by a Shania Twain mash-up, and Blurred Lines playing at midnight (so much better than happy birthday....which the guys sang at every awkward opportunity throughout the weekend). 

You'd think that was enough to celebrate my birthday .... however the actual birthday didn't arrive until Sunday (you can see why I was a bit embarrassed by the whole concoction). The day was off to a good start with a serious sleep-in followed by soup dumplings. Then Lane, Dustin and I walked across the Harbour Bridge (and climbed up one of the towers) before finding a patio for a birthday drink. 

This is the only picture (so far) I have from the weekend - I'll post more when I beg them off Lane! 

Night out in Sydney

So I have been terrible about posting blogs recently! I have been having too much fun! On Friday night Manuela organised a terrific evening out. We started at an amazing Mexican restaurant, then moved onto two mixologist bars (liquid nitrogen was involved in drinks at both! One was a frozen Moscow Mule which was great but the homemade gingerbeer was a bit spicy), and then we went to the Argyle, a club of sorts. Here's a picture that was taken in the club. You will notice we are wearing glow-bracelets. I bought these at Paddy's Market on the rainy monorail day, knowing they would come in handy!!!

Suffice it to say I'm having a blast, and although I'm looking forward to coming home I will miss my friends here very much!

(Looking at this picture, I'm also thinking I might need a haircut soon.....)

(Oh, and although I know it's not that new, this is our current anthem.....)

Stradbroke Island Beaches

Here are some of the pictures of the beautiful beaches on Stradbroke Island. You can see Amanda getting a quick workout in in one of them! The last picture is my favourite.

Brisbane, redux

I was very lucky to be able to have gone back to Brisbane again last weekend to spend some more time with Amanda. And this time the weather cooperated! At least for the first day!

We took the ferry out to Stradbroke Island, which is about a 45 minute drive from the city. The island is made totally of sand and only a few hundred people live on it. It was incredibly beautiful and we got some good beach time in. There is one beach that is 21 miles of straight sand!!

Two of her friends from Brisbane also joined us, so it was a fantastic girls day trip!

Here are some pictures of the ferry across. It was only my second car ferry trip ever!!!

Weekend fun

So, I had the most fun weekend in ages last week! So much fun I had no time to write any blogs!

Lane and I started the weekend early with a night out on Thursday. We went to The Winery which is a fun spot in Surry Hills. It closed unfortunately early so we had to go down the street to Low 302, which is a bar full of red velvet and candelabras. Fun!

We didn't take any pictures, but here's a sample of the cocktail list from Low (we just ordered by pointing to other drinks that looked fun so I have no idea what we got).

After an exceptionally successful day at work we decided to head to The Star which is the casino in Sydney - not far from the hotel. This was spectacularly fun! We started off by knocking something off of by bucket list- a duelling piano bar!! We then went to a restaurant for a fantastic dinner, followed by Lane giving me a few lessons in gambling. We / he didn't do so well at craps, but more than made up for it at blackjack. I thought it was exceptionally fun to help someone else gamble with their money! But quite stressful to roll the dice (literally) and gamble for myself.

A very productive couple of evenings and the weekend was off to a good (although tiring!) start .....

Saturday was a recovery day .... spent enjoying a rare period of spectacularly sunny weather in the botanical gardens and followed by a quick trip to the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Saturday night Lane and I went to Spice I Am on the recommendation of some others at work - great Thai food and fun spot. Best part was it was BYOB so Lane just hopped across the street and found a bottle of wine. Need to be more places like this in the world!

We then met up with another of his friends and went to a couple of bars. Great music and dancing, and another fun night out!

The adventures continued on Sunday with brunch with Manuela (on our team) at Kepos Street Kitchen, again in Surry Hills. We then walked around the neighbourhood, went for coffee at "a place where we could see hipsters in their natural habitat" (was much needed after the previous few nights) and then back to the Winery to sit on their patio this time and enjoy the sun and some sangria.

The weekend finished in the lounge at the hotel playing Boggle with Lane.

What more could someone ask for from a typical 2 days off work? I was excited for the week to start so I could recover....

(I was also too busy having fun to take many pictures - sorry!)

Some old beach pictures

Here are a few old beach pictures Lane sent me from the first weekend he was here! The other guy in the first picture is a business analyst from Germany who was in town for the weekend.

Odds and ends

Here are a few "odds and ends" photos from the last couple of weeks!

This is me and Harriet, the daughter of one of the guys on my team. We all had lunch together last Saturday, and she was very adorable. Rohan and his wife are both doctors and I learned that babies don't have any knees, even at 18 months! The kneecap develops over time. Amazing learning!

Everyone knows that macaroons are in fashion, but they have entered my life in a new way in Australia! Lane and I got a couple after lunch on Saturday. (Lunch was a tower of soup dumplings, which you may recall I love!!) Delish.

Here's a photo from the last winery we visited in the Hunter Valley. Lane is bringing out the alcoholic no one would have ever guessed existed inside of me!

Goodbye Monorail!

KM and KM2 stayed in Sydney through Saturday to visit with me and with another of their McKinsey friends. The morning was a bit of a write-off after the huge party the night before (ended around 3am), but we met for a Korean lunch in Chinatown around noon and felt much better afterwards.

Then we decided to ride the Sydney Monorail. I didn't even know the city had one, but it is one of KM's favourite things to do. It just goes in a small circle and is mostly for tourists. She described it as very relaxing with great views. Sounded like a great hung-over activity to me!

What we didn't know was that it was the last weekend the Monorail was running before it went out of business! They are dismantling it and taking it to Tasmania (apparently) !!! As a result it was not the typical monorail experience (apparently). First, there was a big line. They say there is not normally a line at all. Second, the monorail car was very, very full. So full we could hardly fit in. They say it is normally completely empty (I guess this is why it is going to Tasmania). Third, it was raining today. Normally that would be "normal" for Sydney winter, but the monorail we got in was wrapped with advertising on the outside, and the combination of the advertising and the rain meant that you couldn't see anything outside at all. The rain combined with the crowdedness also made the monorail smell really awful. At one point Lane looked like he was going to puke. We had to get off the train early. Overall Lane and I found that the Sydney Monorail was  more like a subway from hell (or the shuttle train to Newark airport) than a relaxing trip in the clouds above Sydney.

We got off randomly at the next stop (to avoid anyone puking) and happened to be at Paddy's Market, which is a big indoor market. This was a great place to be because it was raining so hard I expected to see cats and dogs everywhere. We made some fun purchases - for me, an interesting surprise gift for Mitchell and some glowsticks for a future team event (to be determined!) and for Lane, this amazing loungewear.

Happy 50th AUO!

This year is the 50th birthday of the McKinsey Australian office. What a great time to be here! There was a great party last Friday night to celebrate the office's success. Everyone from Melbourne and Perth flew to Sydney for Values Day on Friday, which is one day a year when everyone in the company gets together to discuss our values.

This year they held it at Luna Park, which is an amusement park just under the Sydney Harbour Bridge. We had an hour in the afternoon to go on the rides, which was fun. I have no pictures from this part of the day - but if I get any from Lane I'll post them another time!

After the rides it was time to party!! They decorated a ballroom in Luna Park and brought in a DJ. McKinsey Australia also has their own cover band - the Marvin's (named after McKinsey's founder) - who played some great tunes. The runner-up on Australia's The Voice also came to sing with them. It was a huge party. Our Global Managing Director Dominic Barton also attended which was nice.

Attached are some photos from the photobooth. The first is of my team (I'm too technologically challenged to get it to rotate the right way), and the last two are of me and KM (I only have half the photo, she has the original and seems to be too technology challenged to properly take a picture of it and send to me!). I also have one with Dom and the head of the Australian office, but didn't think it was a good idea to post that one!!

Arts & Culture weekend in Sydney

This weekend was Arts & Culture weekend in Sydney. Lane and I started it off by going to see Idina Menzel sing with the Symphony Orchestra. Idina is a big Broadway star in NY who Lane (and everyone else in the Opera House) seemed to know very well. She opened Wicked as Elphaba, and also played Rachel's mother on Glee. It was a super fun show - she was very funny and sang a mix of pop songs and musical hits. After the show we met KM and KM2 for some drinks in the hotel bar, as they were in town for our Values Day on Friday.

Arts & Culture continued on Saturday with a team visit to Blak, an Aboriginal-inspired dance also at the Opera House. This was not quite my cup of tea, although the male dancers were nice to look at! I felt fully steeped in culture after this and decided that I did not need to see any museums to round out the weekend! The team had a few drinks at the Opera House Bar after the show to round out a lovely evening.

Today (Sunday) has been recovery day. We got pedicures and I got a massage and caught up on sleep. Ready to start the week (sort of.....) !!!!

More from Hunter Valley

Here are some more pictures from our trip to the Hunter Valley. These are from the vineyard Allandale. We saw some kangaroos near the vines, tried 5 or 6 wines, and bought a bottle of red (which was fully consumed over the scrabble game). Lovely spot, and not at all commercial compared to the Napa wineries.

Hunter Valley

This weekend Lane and I rented a car and headed to the Hunter Valley, about 2.5 hours from Sydney. We freestyled it - I looked up a place to stay while we were driving out - and found a super charming cottage in a vineyard. It's been a super relaxing weekend, filled with a ton of wine (my highlight was the sparkling Shiraz at dinner last night), great views, good food, and a scrabble match in front of our fireplace.

Here are the views from our deck, taken over breakfast this morning and some pictures of the living room. Stay tuned for more pictures this week!