Birthday Week!

My birthday week has been a huge success! It is the last day of my birthday week and I am just sitting here drinking my morning tea and about to get ready to go to the Sydney Winter Festival with David. It is rainy and has been all week. But hopefully it will still be fun. There is ice skating and a petting zoo. I will break down my birthday week and just let you know how amazing my flat mates and friends are here!!!

Sunday - Jenny took David and myself to Hillsong Church all the way out in Baulkham Hills. It was about a 45 minute drive. I blogged about it previously. :)

Monday - Goutham took me to a restaurant that I have wanted to go to since I first came here called Giovanni's. It looked like a really fancy restaurant on the outside. It was a really nice restaurant. After stuffing ourselves with so much food we walked across the street to Jackson's on George...a bar with four levels. We went to the third level where they had free pool. We played a few games and then a couple joined in with us. I actually did pretty good for not having played a real game before. I actually sunk balls! I even beat Goutham at a game! Obviously, I was just super lucky! After enough of that we went to The Rocks (an older, famous part of the city) and enjoyed some dessert at Pancakes on the Rocks. It is open 24/7 and makes delicious food with crepes and pancakes. I had the Ultimate, it was two crepes with cream cheese in the middle and raspberry syrup with ice cream! Yum! After midnight, we walked over to the Sydney Opera House and took some photos to show that I spent part of my birthday at the Sydney Opera House!

Tuesday - BIRTHday - I woke up to Breakfast in bed with cinnamon buns that David and Juli had made for me the night before. They used my grandma's recipe that David had gotten from my mom. After that, Kanako came in and gave David a plastic bag. It was my birthday present from all the flat mates! It was a big purse that I had been eye-ing while with them last week. David went out to run a few "Errands" while Monica and I went out to get her uggs (in the pouring rain). Later on, in the evening, my flatmates and i went to a restaurant that was a surprise for me. My friends Vivian, Cat and Caz joined us. The food and service (for once) was awesome!!! After we were finished our meal the server brought out a Blueberry Swirl Cheesecake that David had taken over there earlier in the day. He bought it from the store on George St that I walk past every day and eye the cakes in the window with my mouth watering. Everyone sang happy birthday! Luckily there was only one other group in the restaurant so it wasn't as embarassing as it could have been. I was the last one to finish my cheesecake, I let everyone know I was savouring it because my cousin, Stephanie had taught me to do that. haha. We finished off the night with the movie Hangover. It was pretty funny.

Wednesday - I got together with Tami for lunch at Wagamama. We had a good time catching up since the last time I saw her was before her trip up the coast. After lunch with Tami I caught up with David and we walked over to Kanako's work and ate some Japanese noodle bowls with her when she finished her work. We then walked over to a Chocolate cafe called Max Brenner. They had the coooolest mugs ever and yummmmy chocolate. We had choco-banana pizza with a mocha and a cookie flavoured frappe. Don't worry, I took lots of pictures! haha.

Thursday - I had a few girl friends come over and we had a potluck. There was a ton of food. Jenny came over and made spaghetti bolagnse or however you spell it. I made Lazy Man Perogies! A huge hit but then they had never heard of perogies and wanted me to make those next time..haha. David made beef stroganoff (sp?), Juli made her yummy pineapple cake and Monica made a bean salad. The other girls brought a few other little things. Those were the main meals. It was a fun night and the girls and David learned what a potluck was..haha

Friday - My flatmates and I all went out to the Cruise Bar. It is a fancy little place that is right below the Overseas Passenger Terminal. It's the place where huge Cruise Ships come and drop off the passengers for a little while! It was right next to the water across the Harbour from the Opera House. We were joined by Dee, and a few friends from David's hostel. It was a blast. There was a saxophone player and while I was in the bathroom, taking pictures with Juli and Kanako (you will see why when I put pictures up) David asked him to play me Happy Birthday. So when I had just gotten back to my friends I heard Happy Birthday playing on the saxophone and turned to see him walking towards me. Juli got a video up of it! I will see if I can get it so you can all view it. I made friends with a group of Scottish ladies (and man) who were absolutely in love with me. They kept telling me I was so beautiful and that I should move to Scotland because everyone would love me there. We all had a blast dancing around to oldies music. The last ones standing were Monica, David and I. So around 2 in the morning we went over to Pancakes on the Rocks (yes again, it was close to the Cruise Bar) with saxophone man. This time I had the Mexicana! Soooo delicious...again! We chit chatted about all our different cultures (America, Wales, Australia and Canada) until about 5 in the morning. Sax man gave us a ride home and we hit the hay straight away.

Saturday - Dee took Monica, David and I back to her place in Winston Hills (about 40 minutes away from our house) and we watched the Dark Knight (which everyone will hate me but, I didn't really like it..haha). After that was over we made sandwiches and popcorn and headed off to the Drive-In Movie Theatre just a couple suburbs over in Blacktown! We took Dee's mom's SUV and opened up the "boot" and watched from the back. We watched the Proposal and The Boat that Rocked. David loved the second one as it was all British comedy and a small view of some typical British things. Dee dropped David and I off at the train and we headed back to home.

And that was my birthday week! Maybe boring to read but it was a wonderful, wonderful week! It was definitely sad not being close to friends and family but I will remember this birthday for the rest of my life! Not only was it good times with the people I have gotten to know really well here but it was in AUSTRALIA!!! Woooo!

I will be putting up pictures later on tonight and I will post them on here for you all...It will be an over load!!!

Holly!