Hailey Goes To Oz

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Miss Bondi Beach 2008

The day after we went to Manly, the Beach Road Hotel on Bondi Beach was holding its 2008 Miss Bondi Swimsuit Competition. Rob and I met up with an American couple-Mike and Dawn-to watch the competition. There were some beautiful Australian girls!

Me, Mike and Dawn

Me and Rob

And...the winner

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Manly Beach and Shelley Beach

Last weekend we went out to Manly Beach again which is one of the more popular beaches in Sydney. It was pretty packed even though the sun was kind of coming and going.

After we took in the Manly scene for a little while and did some shopping, we did a short coastal walk over to a place called Shelley Beach which we'd been told was a great snorkeling spot. We came prepared with our gear and swam around with a handful of other snorkelers out at Shelley.

On the walk over to Shelley Beach we came across these little guys:

They are called Eastern Water Dragons and we saw about 10 of them! We were feeding them potato chips

Watch this video. This one scared me to death!

Friday, November 28, 2008

Thanksgiving 2008

Thanksgiving was pretty non-traditional this year. We actually thought we were going to skip it all together since we didn't have anyone to celebrate it with and Rob had a work Christmas party on Thursday, but at the last minute we gathered together a group of Americans in Sydney and had a little Turkey Day feast and celebration!

One of the girls that I work with is from Boston and her mom sends her Thanksgiving decorations every year so she loaned me some paper plates and napkins for our dinner party. I had to be creative. This is our Thanksgiving wreath.

The rain held off just long enough for us to be able to enjoy Thanksgiving up on our rooftop by the pool. I made turkey with cranberry stuffing, corn casserole, green bean casserole and mashed potatoes and the others brought homemade biscuits (delicious...it's been so long since I'd had a REAL biscuit!), garlic bread, apple pie and an almond pastry dessert. We had PLENTY of wine and champagne too!

From back to front: Matt from Pittsburgh (friend of friend), Mike from North Carolina, Dallas from Alabama (I used to work with him), Jeff from Charleston (friend of friend), Rob, Dawn from North Carolina.