Our first live rugby game! Newcastle Knights vs Panthers. #NRLKnightsPanthers #StayTrueRednBlue #LinneaAndGustav
Author: Gustav
My name is Gustav, as you probably know. I write for and maintain this blog together with my wife, Linnea.
Wine (and spirit) tour in Hunter Valley with Goonion ?? #16wineslater #LinneaAndGustav
Wine (and spirit) tour in Hunter Valley with Goonion ?? #16wineslater #LinneaAndGustav
The Rocks Aroma Festival (Sunday, 24 July)
Today we were going to Sydney again, but this time for The Rocks Aroma Festival, the largest coffee festival in the southern hemisphere.
We got up at 7 am, fixed some brekkie to take with us, and went to the train. We spent most of the train ride listening to music or sleeping. This way the rides don’t seem so long. When we got to Circular Quay in Sydney and tapped off our Opal cards, the screen displayed that the trip had only cost us A$2.50 each (approx. 16 SEK). That was a nice surprise that we didn’t expect since the usual price is A$8.30.
At Circular Quay where we arrived at 11:30 am, the festival had started. Stalls were located along the wharf towards The Rocks, which you could say is Sydney’s old town. Since Sebastian and Hermione were arriving at noon, we decided to go to the Customs House where we had read that a miniature model of the Sydney City Centre was located under the glass floor in the foyer. It was impressive, and when we got there, we were alone looking at the model.
Walking towards our meeting place with Sebastian and Hermione, we walked past many market stalls. Some of them had queues stretching far; other were less frequented and at some of those, we decided to stop and have a look or a free sample.
We arrived first at our meeting place and decided to look around. We found a market stall where they were selling liquorice! As we were looking at the candy, the owner and manufacturer started handing out pieces of candy while explaining their composition and ingredients. His showmanship and attitude made the comparison to Willy Wonka quite easy. We ended up buying a bag of liquorice and one of peppermint sticks. But the price of candy seems to be higher in Australia compared to Sweden (both in stores and market stalls).
Together with Sebastian and Hermione, we went to a local restaurant called The Glenmore to eat. We shared three dishes, swordfish (first time either of us had that!), squid, and fries. The food was really nice and tasted great!
After lunch, we roamed around The Rocks looking at market stalls. We bought a packet of Vanilla Chai tea from Pukka. Then we bought our first coffee at a market stall from the company Sacred Grounds. We shared a large cappuccino. Delicious!
Sebastian and Hermione went to go shopping while we went for some sightseeing. On our way to Sydney Harbour Bridge, we stopped at a market stall where they sold gilded leather jewellery. Linnea bought a beautiful golden necklace shaped like leafs.
When we arrived at the Sydney Harbour Bridge, we walked along the sidewalk and continued a bit past halfway over before deciding to go back. The view was good from the sidewalk, so we decided not to go up the pylons.
When we came back to the festival area, we got ourselves a coffee each for “free” in exchange for a gold coin donation (gold coin being a one dollar coin or a two dollar coin). At the same time the NSW barista championship final was just about to start on a nearby stage, so we stayed there watching it. The competition evaluated both the latte art and the taste. It was really interesting to watch their technique and the final result.
As the winner of the competition was announced at 5 pm, the festival drew to a close. We went for a last walk alongside the stalls and showed up just in time for when the sushi stall started selling out what remained of the food for half price. We got some sushi and dumplings. We devoured the food in no time as we’re big fans of East Asian cuisine.
Since the festival was over, we went back on the train and discovered when we arrived in Newcastle that our journey was even less expensive going back, this time, there was no charge for either of us. We’ve read up on the Opal card now, and apparently, the maximum charge on Sundays is A$2.50 and after that, you go for free. That means Sunday is now officially “Travelday” in our book.
Last, but not least, here’s the promised video of how to change the direction of a seat on a Sydney train.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLclPKrHDAs
/ Linnea and Gustav
Been looking at shells, star fish, and crabs during the ebb. Now, burgers at the Grain Store. #LinneaAndGustav
Been looking at shells, star fish, and crabs during the ebb. Now, burgers at the Grain Store. #LinneaAndGustav
Saturday, 23 July
Saturday morning was spent finishing unpacking our bags and sorting our clothes. We hung up all our clothes on our new clothes rack or in the wardrobe, alternatively folding them and putting them in our hanging storage compartment on the clothes rack. It finally feels like our room is clean and tidy!
We spent the Saturday afternoon together with Jenny and Grahame. We went out for drinks, first at the Customs House and then at the Grain Store. Both very nice bars that we’ll probably visit again in the near future. We talked about the past week and what we’ve been up to. We got, even more, suggestions from them to add on our bucket list since Jenny thought that we seemed to go through them so fast that we needed some more!
On our way back from town, we went past Christ Church Cathedral and had a look inside. The architecture of the church is interesting, and the window paintings are really beautiful and detailed. One of the must-sees in Newcastle from what we’ve gathered.
Afterwards, we went to Woolies (aka Woolworths) to stack up some more on groceries, before Jenny and Grahame dropped us off at home. Thank you for the day, feels nice getting to know Newcastle more and more.
/ Gustav and Linnea
Friday, 22 July – IKEA!!
Linnea and I had been thinking about it for a long time and today was the day, we were going to Ikea!
We started off by taking the train to Sydney, which in itself took some time (about 2h 30min). We passed the time by listening to podcasts or music, or by sleeping. Side note: on the trains, there are some really cool seats. You can move the back of the seat to either end of the seat (I will show a photo/video of this next time).
When we arrived in Sydney, we took another train to Circular Quay and arrived with a view over the harbour, Sydney Harbour Bridge, and Sydney Opera House.
We walked along the water and walked into an exhibit on the wharf next to a museum. The exhibit showed what I would call the “deer-apocalypse” and wetlands, not far from how some parts of northern Sweden looks (although with fewer horns laying around).
We continued up to The Rocks, where a market was going on. A lot of preparation were also made, it seems, for the Aroma Festival happening on Sunday, which is the largest coffee festival of the southern hemisphere. As soon as we got to know about the Aroma Festival, we decided to go.
We walked up to The Australia Heritage Hotel where we had lunch. The food on the menu was a Coat of Arms pizza, which is a pizza with one half of emu meat and the other half kangaroo meat. The pizza was really good! Linnea liked the emu most, while I preferred the kangaroo. So now we can tick off eating the coat of arms pizza on our bucket list.
After lunch, we walked back down and walked along the water again. We arrived at the opera house and took our pictures. While stopping, we also put on some sunscreen as the weather was splendid and we could feel the power of the Australian sun.
From the opera house, we walked on into the Royal Botanical Garden. We saw some impressive trees growing there. The outlook over the water was spectacular with a good view of the opera house and the harbour bridge. Linnea relaxed a bit in Mrs Macquarie’s Chair, a carved rock seat, with this outlook.
We were meeting up with Sebastian later at the Art Gallery of NSW. On our way over, we saw a flock of wild cockatoos. Linnea got excited as she wanted one when she was younger. But we have now heard their screech, which I think is all you need to hear to reconsider.
When we arrived at the museum, we went in together with Sebastian and had a quick look at some of the paintings. Linnea took the opportunity and voted on a painting for the People’s Choice in the Archibald Prize. We looked at some aboriginal paintings. They were simple, yet complex and also peaceful.
After the museum, we had fika along with both Sebastian and Hermione. We discussed the possibility of going to an opera, concert, or show at the opera house.
By bus, we went to Ikea in Tempe. The Ikea warehouse was far bigger than the one in Linköping and the one in Örebro. It was huge!
We started our Ikea visit by having dinner. Meatballs with lingonberry jam! Linnea tried the chicken meatballs; they were good as well.
When we had eaten, we started our search for the products on our shopping list. We knew we only could buy as much as we could carry, so we had planned in advance only to buy the things we needed.
A the checkout register, Linnea could use her employee discount, which was nice. This is a bit impressive that they manage to keep all the warehouses connected even though they are so far apart.
We bought some food in the Swedish Food Market at Ikea. Herring, Kalles creamed smoked roe, cloudberry jam, lingonberry jam, elderflower juice, etc. So good!
We walked briskly to the Sydenham train station and got into Central a few minutes late, making our wait a bit short. So we ran through the central with all our Ikea stuff, making it to the train to Newcastle just in time before they were about to close the doors.
Home, at last, we assembled our clothes rack Rigga and started to sort and hang our clothes. A picture of our room after the Ikea transformation will come tomorrow.
/Gustav
In case of homesickness, you can always go to Ikea! #justswedishthings #LinneaAndGustav
In case of homesickness, you can always go to Ikea! #justswedishthings #LinneaAndGustav
Hello Sydney! Here’s (one of) our mandatory tourist pictures. #theusualtourist #SydneyOperaHouse #SydneyHarbourBridge #LinneaAndGustav
Hello Sydney! Here’s (one of) our mandatory tourist pictures. #theusualtourist #SydneyOperaHouse #SydneyHarbourBridge #LinneaAndGustav
Thursday, 21 July
Today, we went exploring the neighbourhood. We looked into a couple of nearby shops and found a dog park. The dog park almost solved our quest for finding a human park, which seems to be more scarce than dog parks here in Newcastle. One might count the Callaghan campus a park, almost Jurassic Park as the sound heard there reminds me of that movie. The sounds are mostly produced by birds, such as the one in the video above, which we found during our walk today.
Well, that was today’s ramble.
Nighty, night! / Gustav
Wednesday, 20 July
Today, Linnea and I have been taking things slow. We started by eating a late breakfast. The rain kept falling most of the day with a few short moments of only cloudy skies.
But we took this opportunity to vacuum our room, did our laundry, and wrote posts for the blog. We tried to use the dryer to dry our clothes, but the safety in it kept releasing, so we grabbed our steaming clothes and hung them in our room instead.
Random events kept us engaged as well. A bang shocked us today. It came from our fridge, which had been set too cold and a bottle of water had frozen, and the lid had burst. So we had to dry the mess in the fridge and any water spilling out.
But everything is under control right now. Clothes are still hanging all over the apartment, but hopefully, they are dry soon.
We were out for a short walk to the Woolworths before, but otherwise, it has been an inside day. We ended the day by eating sushi and watching a Swedish film called Sound of Noise. It is a music film about a music terror group, and it contains nice rhythmic tracks.
Now we’re going to bed. Sleep well! / Gustav