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!