Life of the Unemployed

Sean finally started his job last Monday and is enjoying it so far. He really enjoyed having to take a half day off for the doctor and having a public holiday in the middle of the week. Talk about easing into a job. This has left me pretty bored at home and ready to start working, but I'm doing my best to stay productive. I finished painted my furniture and got my room together. I still need some stuff on the walls and painted a picture last week to hang somewhere.

I got the idea from the side of a Kleenex box.

Last Saturday we went to Sean's parent's house for dinner and did a bit of sightseeing on the North Shore before heading over there. We hiked up Mt. Victoria and had a picnic lunch, the hiked up North Head and went down to the beach for a bit of a swim (I finally found some warm water). We had a great meal at his parent's house and then headed home for the evening.

View of North Head from Mt. Victoria

View of Mt. Victoria and the city from North Head

Since Thursday was a public holiday, I forced Sean to get out of the house with me and go to the botanical gardens. It was extremely overcast and supposed to rain, but it turned into a beautiful day so we are glad we went (though wishing we had thought to put sunscreen on). There was a sculpture exhibit going on throughout the gardens and it was fun to finally see a rose garden here in bloom (I kept going to them during the winter when they were all pruned). The sculptures were neat and we had a great day.

This was part of the permanent collection and probably my favorite. Its a bunch of shovels.

These flowers looked crazy

Saturday we headed out to Shakespear Regional Park, which is about 45 minutes north of the city. I had never heard of it before, but wow was it worth the trip. It was on the end of a really long peninsula and the drive down the peninsula was stunning. I probably had my jaw dropped the whole time. At first we did a 5 min walk to a waterfall which ended up really underwhelming (though I would really like to see it when it has some water flowing). We quickly headed to the original trail, which was a 2 hour hike around the park. Our first stop was a viewpoint that had 360 degree views. It was remarkable. I have a video of it if you want to see it. We then hiked around the edge and ended up at the beach you can see in the pictures.

Notorious New Zealand Sheep. We hiked through a few herds.

We headed back home, but once we saw a sign pointing to Big Manly Beach (we were in a town called Manly), we couldn't help but go check it out. There was also a Little Manly Beach but we skipped out on that. It was so humorous driving through the town because everything had Manly in front of it: Manly Liquor Ban, Manly Fruits, Manly Pharmacy, etc. We stopped in another bay for a quick peek then headed home, exhausted.

Yesterday didn't go to plan, but we were able to stop by Big Gay Out, a big LGBT festival nearby. Our flatmate performed a dance with some drag queens and it was really entertaining to watch.

That's pretty much the excitement in my life. I'm going to try and be a bit more aggressive with the job hunt this week and get a bit more homework done. Let me know what you have been up to!