Wrapping Up Year Four

So I have to admit, this is the longest I have not posted while travelling ever. And while I felt a little strange about not writing, my logic was two-fold. First, I spent most of my time in Sydney attending the conference, visiting friends, and seeing things I have already seen and shared with everyone in the past. Second, I was just plain tired. With the visiting and running around, I really didn’t stop all that often to have time to write. My apologies if I left people checking, though I will attempt to update you now that I find myself with lots of time in transit between Sydney and Atlanta.

Last I wrote, I was in Brisbane after a very full day of exploring the city with Ashley, Brant and Michelle. The following morning, Monday, Ashley and I drove out for a day of bush walking in the rain forests located south of Brisbane, inland from Gold Coast (where I had attended the SAHANZ conference two years ago). The drive was gorgeous, and took us up through the mountains with views of the high rises along the Gold Coast. We passed the turnoff for Hinze Dam, where I had visited two years ago when the conference organizer, Andrew (who I have gotten to know in the last three years of the conference) had driven a few of us around to show us the area.

We visited the Natural Bridge, complete with waterfall, and had a lunch in Springbrook before embarking on an afternoon hike through Springbrook National Park. The vistas were gorgeous, reminding me a bit of the fern gullies I had seen last year in Tasmania.

After a full day of hiking (and climbing what Fitbit said was 160 stories), we made the 90 minute drive back to Brisbane. We met up with Brant and the three of us went to West End for pizza and poutine, a drink at a whiskey bar, and then headed home to sleep before our early flight the next morning.

Ashley and I arrived in Sydney around 10:00 on Tuesday morning, the day the conference started. We had booked rooms at World Square, the tallest residential tower in the heart of Sydney, and dropped our bags at the front desk before heading out for a morning of wandering around. We headed through Haymarket to Chinatown, stopping to take pictures of some of the big newly completed projects including the Frank Gehry building, a new building by Durbach Block, and the DCM and Jean Nouvel buildings on Broadway.

It was overcast, and we contended with a bit of rain, but, we still managed to cover a lot of ground, making it all the way to Sydney Uni campus for a bit before heading back across the city to Surry Hill to grab lunch at a great bagel store I had found a few years ago.

After lunch we made it back to the hotel in Liverpool Street to check in just as the sky opened up. We spent the next few hours relaxing as the rain came down across the city. The apartment was very nice and offered views out across the city to the west and south from the 65^th floor (though admittedly, the lobby was on 10, so it was really the 55^th floor, but still).

The weather mostly cleared as we got ready for the half hour walk up George Street to the Rocks for the opening of the conference at the MCA on Circular Quay. We caught up with some of the conference regulars, went to the opening session, and then headed out to grab drinks at Anana (we wanted to go to the Argyle, but it was closed for a private event) and then dinner at one of the hotels in George Street.

The walk back was a bit cold and soggy, and it was good to climb into bed that night to get some sleep before the hecticness of the conference commenced.

I presented in the Wednesday morning session, which went pretty well; it was nice to get it out of the way after having worked pretty hard the few days leading up to it putting the presentation together. The rest of the day was pretty typical for the SAHANZ schedule, with lots of sessions punctuated by tea and lunch breaks. In the late afternoon things wrapped up before the major keynote lecture in Darlinghurst in the evening, so a few of us took the opportunity to enjoy a bit of sunshine with a walk around the Quay to the Opera House and then back through the city before going to the lecture.

Following the lecture, six of us headed a few blocks from the theatre to my favorite restaurant in Sydney: Sushi on Stanley. Everyone seemed to really enjoy it and I was happy to be back. We were all wiped from the day and broke up early.

Thursday was more conference. In the evening, we had the conference dinner on Angel Place, one of the laneways of the CBD. The meal was a bit chaotic, with about 60 of us crammed at two long tables as about 9 different shared courses were brought out.

After dinner Ashley and I met up with Brant, who had flown in for a long weekend as well as other conference people and a few old friends. We sent some time in the courtyard of the Argyle before we grabbed a drink at a whiskey bar located off of a back alley, down a long concrete stair next to a dumpster. It turns out that in the last year seven or eight underground basement bars have opened up in the CBD; seemingly to keep pace with the trendier night scene of Melbourne.

Friday was the last day of the conference. We also moved hotels, trekking down George Street to drop our bags at the Amora in Jamison Street near the MCA before heading to the last sessions. I also had coffee with one of my old professors and lunch with former coworkers from the City of Sydney. It was very nice to catch up with everyone.

In the evening I grabbed a drink with Max. He showed me a few of the underground bars before we found a seat at Lobo Plantation and spent a few hours catching up. I met up with Ashley and Brant for dinner at Phillip’s Foote in the Rocks, where I had eaten with Jason and Rebecca when they had come to visit. We were joined by a girl who had studied architecture at Tulane a few years behind me, who had just moved to Sydney. We had a good night of it, and finished the evening at another one of the underground bars.

Saturday I slept in for the first time in at least a week, which was a very welcome change. I got in touch with a friend of mine from Atlanta who is a pilot for Delta and had adjusted his schedule to fly the Sydney route for the first time so that he could experience the city with someone who knew it. By the strangest of coincidences, out of all the hotels in Sydney, Delta puts their pilots up in the hotel we were staying at.

After Ashley, Brant, and I had breakfast in the Rocks, I headed back to the hotel to meet up with my friend and then the four of us struck out on a walk around Sydney Harbour. Over the following hours (and with some fantastic sunshine) we walked across the Harbour Bridge to North Sydney, walking around Bradfield Park and Luna Park, before heading back south through the Rocks. My friend returned to the hotel to get some rest (he was only in the city for 24 hours and had to fly back to LAX Sunday morning), but the rest of us continued, checking out the soon-to-open Headland Park at Barangaroo, before heading down Kent Street to Haymarket for some shopping at Paddy’s.

We stopped for a (late) snack at a dumpling restaurant, Din Thai Fung, which has a Michelin Star and was, not surprisingly, very good. We then wandered our way over to Surry Hill where we met Candice and Kylie at the Lord Roberts before having dinner at Sushi on Stanley. It was great to catch up with them, and we all ended out late chatting.

Sunday morning, my birthday, I packed and got things ready to go and checked out of the hotel. We left our bags and headed over to Coogee, the southern end of the eastern beaches, for brunch with a friend of Ashley and Brant. Following a good brunch, we made the walk up along the Eastern Beaches (the reverse of what Jason, Rebecca, and I did) all the way to Bondi, where we stopped for a lunch of fish and chips.

We got back to the city in the mid-afternoon, and after a wander around Pitt Street Mall, headed to Circular Quay where we enjoyed some birthday cake at the café along the water beside the Opera House. It could not have been a better way to spend my birthday, with good friends, taking in the best view in the world, with weather to go along with it.

Finally, we headed back to the hotel, I grabbed my bags, and caught a train from Wynyard to Jannali for annual birthday dinner at Janene’s. We had the typical good time, and after all was said and done I repacked my bags and geared up for the long trip home.

And so there it is, another year in the books. Photos will come on facebook in the next few weeks!