August 24

**1. I painted a HUGE canvas for Kelvin & the boys for their new house..
2 & 3 pics from my going-away party & the white horse

I've only got 3 days left!!!
I'm so sad to leave Sydney!

I went out last night for a going away party, it was HEAPS of fun!!
I'm feeling seriously stretched to the max right now, trying to see everyone that I can before I go!!!
Bye Sydney!
x

August 17

**Ok, it was my birthday, so you can't blame me for making a spectacle of myself :) There was a piano in the middle of the bar... it was just ASKING to be played!.
**Second picture is me with Karl, he's the one that started working with me but quit before they could treat him too badly.
**Third is Ryan, Amy and Laura dancing up a storm, again at my Birthday party.
9 Days to go in this big city! :(
9 Days to go until I see my family & friends back in Canada :)

This past couple of weeks have been wonderful (apart from a couple of mishaps at work..) My birthday was last Monday, so I spent the whole weekend doing fun 'Amy' Stuff. On Saturday, I went to a place called Paddington Inn with all of my friends here. It was an AMAZING night!! (which ended strangely with us all loitering in front of my house at 4am and the police coming by to ask us if we were going to be ok, haha). I spent Sunday with another friend, Eddy, and out for dinner. Monday I took the day off work and went with old work-mates Karl and Rachel to Newtown for lunch, Luna park for the afternoon and then to my favourite restaurant, Chili Cha Cha's for dinner with Karl, Caroline and Kelvin. The whole thing was totally perfect. Kelvin gave me an All Black's Jersey (he's from New Zealand and that's their rugby team... I go with him & the boys to the sports-bar when they play and they ALWAYS win).
Four of my favourite guys from the house moved out of our shabby diggs into a new place just down the road & it's gorgeous! I'm so jealous. I spent Tuesday night there & it was incredible to sleep somewhere with windows... and a real bed... and warm... and bigger than a shoe box!
Laura and Caroline moved out of their apartment too... from the city to the beach. Their new place is literally a 5 minute walk to the ocean, it's beautiful. I spent the day with them today organizing and shopping for funky wall coverings, etc.

August 3

Here I am at the Potbelleez concert with Laura and Ryan. It was a great night as usual!
I've been super busy lately... haven't written one of these in a while, but my mom requested another entry, so here goes:
I've been going to the beach a lot lately, and although it's winter here, the days are gorgeous. no, I'm not swimming in the sea or getting a fabulous tan, but I am soaking up some Australian sunshine within my last 3 weeks here.
I've also been doing some freelance work for various local companies for some extra cash and have made great friends with one of the new guys at work. Since then he's quit for bigger and better things, but he's been passing along freelance work to me and will *hopefully* continue to do so after I leave for Canada. I'm going to have to get a new computer as soon as I get home so that I can handle all the new business, but am confident that the freelance work will more than pay for it.
I'm going to miss SO much about Australia when I leave... but there is SO much in Canada to look forward to. Aaron & Kathryn expecting baby #2 at the end of August, and Greg & Krystal getting engaged! WOW, congrats, all of you.

I've made up a list of some of the sites that I've worked on so far, here they are:


http://www.constructionassignments.com/

http://www.garypogson.com.au/

http://www.legaleagle.com.au

http://www.cutegecko.com.au/onthephonetoparis/site.swf

http://www.purpose.com.au/client--login/starcommercial/siteroot/sample5/index.html

http://www.purpose.com.au/client--login/unitedinstallationrepair/siteroot/sample5/index.html

http://www.capital4business.com.au/

http://www.homestartnsw.com/

June 12

Since I've written last, I've completely fallen in love. with Sydney. and everything Australian :)
A friend of mine took me to see Edward Scissorhands at the Opera House!!
1) The Opera House is stunning and I loved getting all dressed up to go and just BE there.
2) Edward Scissorhands was fabulous, no singing or talking, just dancing & SO good. The costumes, Sets, the dancing were all great... well I suppose I don't have to explain, you could just IMAGINE how good it was?
That's really the main event here. I feel a bit like I'm repeating myself every time I come on and gush about my busy life here, so I won't. I'll just say there's never a dull moment and leave it at that.
I have some new pictures, but I forgot my camera at home, boo. BUT I cut my hair off, it's very chic & still blonde, but not 'glow in the dark'.
Well, till next time, I suppose just pray that I have the courage to find my way back to Canada...

May 28

**Pictures... First is of Cillian & I from the night we all went out to Kareoke. Ok so he looks a little scary, but he's one of the funniest people I've ever met!! Second is Cillian enjoying some Pork bum in China Town, haha, ew. &**
What have I been doing?
Too much to remember or take the time to write, so I'll just fill in the good bits. I went on a tour of the Opera House with my friend Theo. It is SO great inside, & we got to learn all about the history of how it was made and the big controversy over making such an odd-looking building.
We also went for dinner & drinks at the Shangri-La hotel which overlooks the harbour front at night. What a gorgeous view!!
Hmm, what else. The regular out all night in Kings Cross with the girls & afternoon coffee's at the local cafe. Work has been fine and pretty ordinary these days.
Sunday wwe went to the italian festival in little italy & Sunday night I went to visit Matt before he left for New Zealand this week. He's going to stay there for a couple of months and then he'll be back to Ottawa on August 1st. I wonder if I'll ever see him again?? It's odd starting to think of all the great friends here that I won't ever see again in my life. It's great that we can still keep in contact over the internet, but it's never the same.

May 15

Time is flying by!!
The weather's been amazing here lately, beautiful sunny days & no more rain!!!
These past couple of weeks have been jam packed as usual! My Aussie friend Ryan made dinner for me and took me out on a midnight motorcycle tour of the city. We went out to the harbour bridge, around the opera house through some fantastic back streets of the suburbs, around Glebe and finally back to Redfern. It was unreal!
The following Thursday night, I went with a few friends to try to scalp some Stereophonics tickets at the Metro Theatre. Sadly, even after making friends with some professional scalpers, I didn't make it into the concert, so we went out for drinks anyway. (no, not me and the scalpers.. with my friends)
The weekend was more of the same.. out on Friday and then Monique's sister, Simone, came to Sydney to see me on Saturday afternoon. One of my housemates, Jay, recently passed the test to get his Australian citizenship so we all celebrated Saturday night at the house with lots of Champagne. We told Jay that since it was his celebration, he could choose where we went & since he's Asian, of course he chose Karaoke. So about 15 of us from the house plus Simone, Laura and Caroline all went out to China Town for a fantastic night of karaoke in our own private room. stellar night!
Sunday morning, Simone woke me up to ask me if I wanted to head to Mt Kuring-Gai to see Deb, Laura, Mark & Monique. So we took the train up for a wonderful afternoon. We went out pram shopping (Mark & Monique are expecting their first baby in August) and made lunch for Deb for mother's day. Sunday night I did more volunteer work and even got serenaded by one homeless man to the song "Once in Love with Amy" by Sammy Davis Jr. Interesting to say the least.
On Monday night, one of me house-mates, Kelvin (the Kiwi I have a picture of from a few weeks ago), was complaining of feeling really sick. After a while he said his leg really hurt and started telling us about a cut he had on his leg. So, a few of us took him into the emergency room... he was looking really bad. We waited for about 4 hours with him until he saw a doctor. It's a good thing the guys I live with are so hilarious, they actually became the entertainment for everyone in the ER. They started a game called "who can inch closest to the automatic door without it opening" TOO funny. So as it turns out Kelvin has an intense blood infection and they had to keep him in hospital for 6 days!! Poor lad. I went to visit him again last night & he's insisting he's fine but they want to keep him in for another 2 days. Just have to remind him that being a hard man about things is what landed him in there in the first place. After visiting Kelv last night I went back out to Ryan's for Italian and another motorcycle ride. It's just too cool in the city, especially late when there's not much traffic and the bike can really go!
SO after all this excitement, I've changed my plane ticket home. The date is now 100% because I can't afford to change it again. July 6, 2008... Hello Canada.
Wow it's going to be tough leaving Sydney

May 5

***We were out at Bungalow 8 in Darling Harbour. Ben, Laura, Josh (the DJ) and Me**
Another exciting Sydney week.
The closer I get to leaving here, the more I don't want to go. I don't know what to do! I love this place!!!
Last week was much like the one before. Relaxing in the park, eating heaps of sushi, going out with friends. This place is so random, I actually saw a guy stopped at a red light near my house playing a clarinet in his truck while he waited for traffic. hm. There was another day that I was standing in the street, talking with some friends and a smelly old homeless man colided with me and then stumbled off somewhere without saying anything. EW
I learned so much last week at work. There was an afternoon that I client came in to discuss a look&feel for a website that I was working on. I got to sit in on the whole thing and discus why/how I did everything. She was really impressed with my work! Also, I'm the head of a team for another big project where everyone's coming to ME for instruction on what to do next. How good is that??! Very pro.
I did some home visits for St Vincent De Paul with a little Asian guy called Malcolm. One of the places we went had a tiny Chineese woman who literally cried from the moment we walked in the door to the moment we left. She had a really sad story.

Saturday night was one of the best yet.. Laura and I went out with some friends to see another friend DJ in Darling Harbour. He was a great DJ, plus it was great fun to have a friend up on the stage. We ended up going to a few different bars.. closing them all and eventually arriving back at Laura's at 8am. Slept till 3 (a bit of a wasted Sunday) but totally worth it!